


Dead Man's Paradise

by Yahtzee



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dubious Consent, Fuck Or Die, Kink Meme, Multi, Pastiche, Slash, Slavery, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-10
Updated: 2011-07-11
Packaged: 2017-10-21 05:21:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahtzee/pseuds/Yahtzee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the XMFC Kink Meme, specifically this prompt: "Nazi hunter Erik Lernsharr is apprehended and sentenced to prison for the sheer trail of brutality and blood he left in his wake. But before he can be sent to prison, he's purchased by a Deadman Wonderland, the world's only privately owned prison come amusement park, where the prisoners are the entertainment.</p><p>If you're familiar with the show, basically the rules, brutality, and the like are the same. Except DW is run entirely by mutants, even if not all the prisoners are mutants, since mutants would need to be able to subdue other mutants. But mutants are also the most valuable form of entertainment, and hence the most valuable prisoners, especially the ones who are deadmen walking."</p><p>I'm wholly unfamiliar with the original "Deadman Wonderland" source, so I've just taken the core concepts and tried to fold it into this. Set in 1961 England. This also operates as my fill for the hc_bingo prompt "slaves."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Erik

Erik Lehnsherr sits on a chair in a concrete cell. The only light comes from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, swinging slightly, casting strange shadows on his captors. When he looks down at the metal handcuffs binding his wrists, it makes him smile.

One of his interrogators says, “You claim that Maurice Chapel was secretly a Nazi.”

“His real name was Maximilian Kappel. He was a railroad executive who helped arrange shipments to the concentration camps.” Erik remembers the inside of the boxcar, the stink of sweat and piss and fear. He remembers his father holding him up with arms already trembling from hunger, so that Erik could open his mouth at the high slit and catch a bit of rainwater on his tongue, the only respite from the terrible thirst. His father never had a chance to drink.

“There’s no proof of that.”

“I know what I know.”

Erik has little patience with humans, but he understands quite well that his word alone is not enough for the English police force to let him walk away – not after he impaled Maximilian Kappel with a railroad spike. If he has to rot the rest of his life in Strangeways, it’s all been worth it to watch one more Nazi choke to death on his own blood.

But he doesn’t expect to rot. Prisons have a tendency to rely on metal.

Another guard says, “Don’t suppose you can explain how you managed to shove that spike all the way from the guy’s arse into his brain. You use a broomstick or something?”

“I was motivated.” Erik’s powers have rarely been more fulfilling.

The door behind him opens, and there’s some whispering. No doubt they’re also trying to come up with an explanation of how he got through the gates and locks surrounding the home of “Maurice Chapel,” all the precautions the man thought would keep out the past. Erik doesn’t care what they decide. It doesn’t matter. The next part of his life is mostly about boredom. He can wait out whatever comes next, until he is again free to keep hunting – and, perhaps, at last, to find Sebastian Shaw.

A voice says, “This one’s shipping out to the private facility.”

That sounds … odd.

“Don’t hold with privatizing the jails myself,” a guard grumbles, but he nudges at Erik with his nightstick. “Right, you. Come on.”

“Where am I going?” Erik says, with little real curiosity.

But the answer strikes a discordant note deep within. “You’re headed to Dead Man’s Paradise.”

**

Erik awakens on a slab of stone.

He startles – how did he fall asleep amid all this? He can’t have. That’s when he recognizes the thick sweet fog still clouding his thoughts and knows he was drugged. His memories are garbled from only a few moments after they loaded him into the transport; either they doped him immediately or the drugs have muddled the surrounding hours.

His neck hurts. One hand goes to his throat to feel a slender metal collar there – one with rough points that jab into his flesh raggedly enough that he doesn’t immediately rip the thing away. Removing it will take care.

Groggily he tries to look around. Gray, featureless, ill-lit: The room might as easily be in the jail he’d left, save for the distant roar. It’s a familiar sound – a human sound. Erik wonders, in a daze, if they’re near Twickenham stadium. Metal mesh forms most of the walls, which means he can see quite a distance into other similarly bare, depressing rooms, but the light is tricky and the shapes seem to change.

Prison again. So far he’s been incarcerated in three different countries. (He only counts actual prisons, and being jailed for actual crimes. What happened at Buchenwald doesn’t go on the tally.) Erik plans to rank them all for ease of escape. England seems likely to rank low; the walls themselves are metal? They might as well roll him a red carpet to the door.

One of the forms in the shadows steps closer. A guard, with purple stripes on his armband. A shout: “This one’s finally up!”

Erik’s eyes widen, because his jailer isn’t human.

He’s a mutant.

The jailer is red-skinned, pointy eared – he even has a tail. Erik knows he’s not hallucinating from the drugs, though. This isn’t some vision of a cartoon demon come to taunt him. Everything that’s happening is too real.

“Who are you?” Erik says. His voice is rough, as if, during the hours he forgot, he was screaming.

“I am Azazel.” His unfathomable eyes mock as he shoves Erik roughly from his slab; Erik only just manages to land on his feet. He’s wearing a black T-shirt and loose pants: prison garb, of a sort. “They gave you extra drugs – said you were a dangerous one. We’ll see about that, won’t we? But it’s time for you to stop napping. Time for initiation.”

“You’re a mutant.” Erik can’t stop thinking this. He can’t wrap his head around the idea that he’s been taken captive, been hunted down for who and what he is – exactly as he always feared – but by others of his kind. It can’t be. “Why do you work for them?”

“We don’t work for humans. We merely entertain them.”

Erik doesn’t understand any of this, and he decides he’s tired of trying. There’s plenty metal in the mesh grates surrounding this room, more than enough to wrap Azazel in. He reaches out –

\--and nothing happens.

No, not nothing: The closest grate shudders in its frames. But the response isn’t nearly as strong as he would expect; this is the level he was at when he was hardly more than a boy. Erik feels a sickening wave of fear. “What have you done to me?”

“Your powers are mostly suppressed by your collar,” Azazel says. Others are filtering past now, all in prison garb like him, all mutants – even with the human ones, by now, Erik can tell. By and large they don’t look at Erik, wasting no pity or energy on anyone else. He wouldn’t either, if he were any less overcome. “I wouldn’t remove it, if I were you. It also delivers the antidote.”

“Antidote?”

“To the poison you’ve already been given.”

The sickly sweet fog within Erik’s mind takes on a darker cast. As he stands there, still dazed with drugs and shock, Azazel pushes him with the sharp tip of that tail. “Processing. Now.”

Processing.

That was what the Nazis called it.

Your suitcases? They’ll be along. Never fear. Do you have your names on labels stitched into your coats? You’ll have to sort them out later – you can’t take them into the showers, of course. Now form a line. You, this line. You, that one.

(A metal sign overhead read _Jedem das Seine_. Literally it means “to each his own,” but the phrase in German carries another connotation – namely, that everyone gets exactly what they deserve.)

All the strong in one line. All the weak in another. Erik remembers his mother’s pitiful screams as she and his father were yanked into the line for the weak, and her cries weren’t even fear for her own life, just fear for her boy and everything he would have to bear without her there to protect him if she could. And she hadn’t guessed the worst of what would come to pass.

Is the universe cruel enough to provide an afterlife? Has his mother had to behold what Shaw did to her son, what he made of him?

Erik hopes not.

“You don’t listen, do you?” Azazel snarls. “Move!”

Then he strikes Erik hard enough for Erik to tumble to the ground. The combination of drugs and betrayal by his own kind nauseates him, maddens him beyond reason or restraint.

He rushes at Azazel, only to be brutally backhanded. His body slams into the metal mesh, and briefly he can feel the dimmest echo of his power, but not as strongly as he can feel the ragged edges cutting into his skin. Other prisoners are mumbling in dismay – other prisoners, other mutants, how can they line up for the slaughter like this? But they’re all collared. Tagged. Doomed. Panic and rage battle for Erik’s brain, and he can only fling himself at Azazel again; his hands barely manage to seize Azazel’s arms before he’s savagely thrown to the ground. His head strikes the concrete floor, not hard enough to injure but more than enough to daze.

“Do it again, if you want to die without even getting a fight,” Azazel snarls.

Erik has been in a position to ask whether he’d prefer a fast death or a slow one; he knows the answer. So he shakes his spinning head and tries to get to his feet –

\--when one of the prisoners breaks rank and stoops by his side.

A hand closes gently around Erik’s arm. There is something in that touch that pulls him away from the nightmarish past and returns Erik to the here and now.

And then – not aloud, but inside his head, Erik hears a voice say, _You’re not alone._

Erik meets the blue eyes of a man perhaps a few years younger than himself, not particularly tall nor muscular, but unbowed by captivity. His hair has been roughly and haphazardly shorn, almost bald along the side, where half-healed stitching reveals the aftermath of some brutal wound.

“My God,” this man whispers. “What did they do to you?” Somehow it’s evident that he’s not taking about today. The blue eyes go to Erik’s arm, where the tattooed numbers remain stark against his skin.

Erik can only shake his head. Really, he’s never had a reply to this. A recitation of facts, a catalog of the dead, but he has never had a real answer, one that would say why.

“We’re in this together,” the newcomer says as if he truly means it. “Come along.”

“Not again.” Erik has stood in lines before. He has waited to be sorted as living or dead before. His worst, oldest nightmare is unfurling around him, and it’s paralyzing. “I won’t do this again.”

The man kneeling beside him nods; he understands, deep down. Erik knows that. And yet this man will not let him go.

He says to Erik, “You’re too strong to die here, my friend.”

“Move!” Azazel shouts, and Erik regrets it, because he was about to stand for this person – this friend – and not on anyone’s orders. But when his hand is tugged, Erik takes the hint and rises, and soon he too is marching in file.

Behind him, his new friend says, voice soft enough to hardly carry over the tromping of feet on the floor, “I’m Charles Xavier.”

“Erik Lehnsherr.”

“Why did you keep going after the grates?”

It feels odd to say the next out loud, but for the first time in his life, Erik is surrounded by his own kind. “I control metal – or I did. What have they done to us?”

“These collars inject two drugs. One is for masking our powers.” Charles has a remarkably soothing voice, despite the dire nature of what he says. Erik tries to focus on it as he walks in the line, closer and closer to the horrible roar of the crowd. “One is the antidote to the poison we’ve already been given. Trick is, we have to earn the antidote.”

“Earn it? How?”

“Still finding out,” Charles admits. “I’ve heard rumors, but – I don’t know for sure. Only got here a week ago, and most of that time I’ve been recovering from the surgery.”

“Surgery?”

“I’m a telepath – a mind-reader. And I was stronger than their stupid drugs.” The pride in Charles’ voice resonates with something deep within Erik. “So they attached a metal plate to my skull. There’s something about its composition – the alloy – I don’t know. Now I can only read thoughts through touch.”

He didn’t have to touch people before? Erik has heard of a handful of telepathic mutants, but apparently none of them came close to matching Charles’ power.

They’re being herded into a kind of pen now, and Erik’s gut cramps with remembered cold and terror. It seems to him that he can feel the thick mud around his feet, that the rain will come pelting down. But the guards – all the guards, he can see dozens of them now – they’re mutants. His only psychological defense has always been hatred of humanity for what they did in the camps, and his knowledge that he was not one of them. But he is one of these. It makes no difference.

As they come to a stop, Charles steps beside Erik. His eyes betray concern; it probably doesn’t take telepathy to see that Erik is at the brink. “When I took your hand – well, I saw how you got here. You killed a Nazi. You deserve a medal, not this.”

“And you? What brought you here?” Erik doesn’t care what the answer is; he has to say something to keep from letting the terror take him over.

Or he thinks he doesn’t care, until Charles says, “Framed myself for murder. Nobody’s even dead, actually. The police only _thought_ they saw a corpse. I wonder what they buried.”

Erik has to stare. The grid overhead cuts the light into squares. Lines of shadow criss-cross on Charles’ face. “Framed yourself? But why?”

“I had to get here. To find out if Dead Man’s Paradise was real, and see if it could be destroyed.” After a moment, Charles adds, more quietly, “And I believe one of the prisoners is -- someone very dear to me. If Raven’s in here, I have to get her out.”

“How?”

“Still working on that, I admit.”

“Planning may not be your strong suit.”

“Good thing I met you then, isn’t it? You’re skilled at that sort of thing. I can tell. ”

Although Charles’ cockiness in the face of hell is wildly irritating, Erik can’t help but admire his courage. It’s taking all his considerable strength of will to continue standing upright in the face of this horror. As more people crowd in, he sees that there are female inmates as well, with bruised faces and tattered wings. They are all caught up in Dead Man’s Paradise, whatever it might be.

A dark figure appears on a platform near the top of the room; the murmuring crowd of prisoners instinctively falls silent. Erik can’t breathe.

“Welcome to Dead Man’s Paradise. I am the Jailer. This prison is an experiment – a private company, not a government institution, designed to protect society and create profit. You want to earn your lives? Then you will earn antidote. You earn antidote by playing in the games … and, of course, by surviving them.”

Games. He means gladiatorial games. Mutants are forcing other mutants to tear one another apart for the amusement and profit of human beings.

Erik has to fight back the urge to vomit.

“There is no parole here. No time off for good behavior. You will fight at least once every three days, and you will kill or die. There are other games, too – some for less profit, some for more – but the stakes remain high. The price of failure is absolute. Know this: From this day forward, you are mine.”

“Don’t lose heart,” Charles murmurs.

“I haven’t.”

Charles glances at him then, and even from the corner of his eye, Erik can see the surprise on his face. “Erik?”

“I’m quite well now,” Erik replies, and he is. The fear has gone somewhere else. He knows how to fight. He knows how to kill.

And the Jailer is none other than Sebastian Shaw.

His chance has come at last.


	2. Charles

Charles looks at his new friend, Erik – unbeaten and unbowed, already preparing to face this new challenge – and wishes he had that kind of confidence.

Although Charles doesn’t lack for courage, he is keenly aware of his own strengths and vulnerabilities. Hand to hand combat – well, that’s not in the “strengths” column. He’d heard that such gladiatorial matches took place in Dead Man’s Paradise, but had assumed they were a small part of the proceedings, and probably voluntary, a kind of exaggerated, formalized version of the internecine conflicts that invariably arise during incarceration. Not even his deepest terror for Raven ever led him to think that this was the whole purpose, or that combat could be mandatory.

So, too, is killing – at least, for those who hope to survive. Charles is willing to die to free Raven, but not until she’s safely out of this place. That means he’ll have to commit murder. The thought makes him queasy.

“I’ve never … killed anyone,” he mutters. He’s never even done more than shove another child on the playground.

“I’ll teach you how,” Erik says, as casually as a boy at school might be when offering to instruct a first-year in the rules of cricket. That ought to be disconcerting. Instead it’s as close to reassuring as anything in this place gets.

But whatever comfort Charles feels dissipates as he looks into the crowd of new prisoners – some belligerent, some weeping, all at the last pitch of desperation – and imagines Raven, his Raven, here.

**

She never let well enough alone.

He had used his powers to convince his parents that they’d always had a daughter, a little sister for him, and that “Raven” suited her far better than the name they’d always planned to give a girl, “Marjorie.” Charles had told her all she had to do was look human and stay out of their way, and like as not they’d hardly notice her until it was time for her to matriculate at Lady Margaret Hall. They barely seemed to notice him, most of the time.

But Raven – she always wanted more.

Forever and ever she’d come down to breakfast naked as a jaybird and even bluer. Charles would hear the screams as he struggled into his school clothes and would have to project into his parents minds an image of the daughter they thought they had, one strong enough to hide the truth.

“I want them to love me for who I am,” she would say. It was difficult to argue with her. But it was also hard to hear his parents screaming every bloody morning.

She began stealing money a few years later, using her gift to impersonate barkeeps and shopgirls who could get behind the till. Charles would find sheaves of bills tucked into the sleeves of her Lonnie Donegan records.

“I want money they didn’t give me,” she would say. “They only think I’m their daughter because you made them think it. They don’t really know me. They don’t really love me. I don’t want their gifts.” Again, hard to argue. But he didn’t like the idea of them using their powers like common crooks.

She began toying with boys not long after that. For one, she’d be her favorite human form, a curvaceous young blonde; for another, she’d be dark and alluring, like Dorothy Dandridge. Multiple guys each week, and she seemed to think it was all a game.

“It’s not so different from changing my lipstick or my dress,” she would say. “It’s just what I can do.”

How could he complain about that? But he wanted to complain at the school dance, when after much terror he had finally asked Sharon Tilney to join him on the floor, and she’d swayed in his arms while her breasts brushed his chest, and steered him to a private corner where he felt sure he was about to receive his first kiss – before he looked over her shoulder to see the real Sharon Tilney dancing with some other boy.

“A joke.” Raven’s eyes in Sharon’s face, the sadness there giving the lie to her smile. “It was just a joke.”

Her nudity wasn’t a caprice anymore. It was a challenge, one he couldn’t accept. She’d be sprawled across the couch in his room at Oxford, long legs and perfect breasts and shining blue and yearning so strong he could almost smell it, and all he could see was his _little sister_. All he could do was beg her to put something on.

“Don’t you love me for who I am?”

“Yes, of course I do. Always.” Still holding out his robe. Still looking away.

She made him promise not to read her mind, then grew angry when he didn’t know what she was thinking. Newspaper reports began appearing about large-scale robberies conducted by apparent doubles of store staffers, and Charles would look up from the paper to see her innocently spreading marmalade on her toast. When he heard her crying in the bathroom one afternoon, he stood in front of the door for long minutes, wanting so badly to knock and ask what the problem was – but knowing he was the problem, he simply stepped away.

The next day he awakened to find her gone. A roll of twenty-pound notes was stuffed in his robe pocket. Maybe it was a gift. Or maybe Raven now hated him so much that she didn’t want to feel she owed him anything.

**

“You think the police realized a mutant was committing the robberies,” Erik says. “That they caught her and brought her here.”

“My contacts didn’t know much about this place. They’d seen her name on some documentation about Dead Man’s Paradise. That’s all I know. But – that scenario seems most likely.”

They lie side by side, metal grate between their cells. The prisoners in Dead Man’s Paradise are kept in cells that house a half-dozen inmates each, fenced in on all sides by more of the endless metal grate. Charles had been worried about violence before he came here – beatings, rape, the various horrors one hears of in jails – but now he sees that everyone is biding their time. Saving their strength for the games. He rests easier because of that, but mostly because his cell is next to Erik’s, and their bunks are therefore only inches apart.

Already he would trust this man with his life.

He may be about to trust him with something even more important.

Charles murmurs, “Do you know, you’re the only person I’ve ever talked to about Raven? Really talked, I mean.”

“There are so few of us.” Erik’s finger traces one of the diamonds in the grate. Perhaps he likes the feel of metal, even if it is no longer his to command. “It’s hard to find friends.”

“I’d hoped to start a school someday, for young mutants.”

“Hoped?” Erik’s eyes narrow. “Where’s your arrogance? Forgive me, my friend, but here – I think you need it.”

“That was before I knew I’d have to kill and kill again.”

“We talked about how you can this. Tomorrow, if I have a chance, I’ll show you in more detail. I don’t intend to let this Jailer get you, too.” Erik seems so committed to Charles’ survival already. It moves something deep within Charles – something stealthy and compelling, hard to name but harder to deny. “You don’t have to be stronger than your opponent to do harm, Charles. Only strong enough. And you are.”

Charles shifts on the coarse woolen blanket so that he’s on his side, facing Erik. “You’re the stronger of us, and we both know it.”

“In combat – perhaps.” Erik’s dark eyes are so expressive that Charles can see the depth of feeling in them even now, after lights-out. “But there’s more than one way to be strong.”

“There’s one way that counts in here, and I haven’t got it.” Charles hesitates – what a thing to ask of a stranger, what a sacred promise he needs – but Erik is already no stranger. And Charles thinks Erik understands when a vow is sacred. “If I die in the arena – Erik, promise me you’ll look for Raven. That you’ll try to find out what happened to her, and if she’s still alive, do your damnedest to get her out. I think – I think you may be her best chance.”

Slowly, Erik nods. “I swear it.”

It is a blood oath. Charles shivers in gratitude, and something else besides.

**

The next day, they work.

Tokens can be earned for work within Dead Man’s Prison, it seems, and enough tokens can buy antidote – but it takes so many hours of hard labor that nobody can survive on tokens alone. Charles wonders whether the labor (moving concrete bars and bricks, mostly) actually serves any purpose or is just there to grind them down.

More damaging than the sweat and the labor are the whispers. The prisoners who have been there longer have advice to share, or horror stories to spread; it’s impossible to tell the difference.

“They ask for volunteers, but hardly anybody ever volunteers. When they decide you go in, you go, and there’s an end of it.”

“It’s not so bad when they yell for you. Gets your blood up, at least. It’s worse when they’re talking. Up there smoking cigarettes while you try not to get killed.”

“Some of the guards were inmates, once. Play your cards right, you can wind up with some purple stripes of your own. That’s what I’m going to do.”

“Only a couple tokens to watch the games yourselves. Some won’t but I say, how better to size up the competition?”

“That poor bastard over there? His mutation is he can’t die. Most nights they pull him apart just to prove it. People pay more than you’d believe to watch his intestines slither back up inside his gut again. Give him a wide berth if you know what’s good for you. He’s got a nasty temper, and no wonder.”

“If it’s a straight out fight? Volunteer for it. You don’t want to get pulled into the Night Games. Some thugs like ‘em because they want a chance at the women, but like as not they’ll pull another man stronger than you and then it’s you getting fucked while they cheer.”

“Swear to God I saw him! John Profumo, clear as day. And I’d bet anything that little chippie on his arm wasn’t his wife.”

“Extra pay, sometimes, if you make the death last a long time. Lots of screaming and blood – that’s what they like.”

Just listening to it makes Charles’ stomach hurt. He’s not going to last long in this place.

Across the work yard, he sees Erik, who has tirelessly, silently, hauled blocks all day. No gossip for him, no complaints, hardly any rest: he sat by Charles at their pathetic lunch, some slop called stew at long plastic tables, but Erik’s mind was elsewhere. He’s been strangely energized since the Jailer’s speech. Whatever inner strength he’s found, Charles is glad of it. Erik is too good to die as entertainment for the rich and bloodthirsty.

Charles, though – he’s just good enough for that.

Love and arrogance led him here. There had never before been any situation he couldn’t handle; there had never before been a situation where he thought Raven needed him more. He’d like to think he’s going to die for love of his sister rather than for pride, but Charles has a feeling that once he’s on the floor of the arena, it won’t make any difference.

**

That night the guards make a cull for the games.

“We need a new one!” a voice shouts, too gleefully. “They want fresh meat tonight, up against the Cave Lion.”

This wins murmurs of dismay from the more experienced prisoners. This Cave Lion (mutant? Man? Actual great cat? Nothing seems out of question here) must be fearsome.

Charles looks across the grate into the next cell, where Erik sits coolly in on his bunk. “Don’t you dare volunteer,” Charles whispers.

“Why do you think I would?”

“Because you’re spoiling for a fight.”

“Not with anyone called Cave Lion.”

The reassurance helps, but Charles realizes too late – by whispering, he’s drawn attention to himself. “This one,” the guard says, pointing his white-furred claw at Charles. “This one looks like he’d scream.”

“No,” Erik says, voice sharp. But Charles gets off his bunk before they can turn their attention to Erik instead. He won’t have this man die for him, while others watch for fun.

“I’ll come.” Terror pools in the pit of his stomach. For all his bravado, he didn’t even make it out of the medical wing for two full days. But so be it. Raven has another warrior now. A better one. Men have died for less.

The guards pull him out, and Charles tries to walk steadily on his way. As he goes past Erik’s cell, he mouths, _You promised._

Erik nods, clutching at the grate.

Charles is taken to an anteroom very near the shouting. In the distance, half-shadowed, he can see something being dragged out – something that until recently was a someone. His shirt is stripped away, and when they see how utterly average his muscles are, he’s fitted with a sort of mail vest that is supposed to provide protection but is so heavy that it might as well tie him down.

The guard Azazel jabs at Charles’ collar, and a pinpoint pricks his neck hard enough to make him wince. “A bit of adrenalin,” Azazel says. “A bit more besides. To make sure you’re in the game. Now, pick a weapon.”

This is utterly laughable. The only thing Charles has ever hit anyone with is a croquet mallet, and that wasn’t very hard and only because Raven cheats. He stares at the array of weapons as people file into a lower gallery – prisoners, he realizes, come to watch others die.

Dead Man’s Paradise serves two fundamental goals, Charles realizes. To teach humans to think of mutants as mere animals, and to turn mutants against each other.

“Choose!” Azazel shouts.

“Charles!” It’s Erik – in the gallery. He paid the few credits he made today, not to gawp, but so that Charles wouldn’t die alone. Oh, my friend, Charles thinks. “You have to get close to him. Get close!”

Of course. The metal tools Azazel is offering him are beside the point; the only real weapon Charles has is his telepathy – which, right now, is limited to touch.

He grabs a short-handled hammer, the closest thing offered to a croquet mallet, and attempts to steady himself. The injected adrenalin is making his heart pound faster and harder, beyond the mere terror of the moment; his anger at the mere existence of this place is rising. A mesh gangplank lowers, revealing a trapezoid of bright light – the first Charles has seen in days, and probably the last he will ever see. He hates it, because when he walks onto the gangplank he looks desperately into the lower gallery, hoping to meet Erik’s eyes, but the glare blinds him.

The gangplank rises. Charles braces the mallet in front of himself; no point of even trying to look fearsome, he knows, but perhaps he can at least avoid embarrassing himself. He’d like to die without being humiliated. Why does that matter? It just does. He wishes for some of Erik’s unshakable pride.

For Raven, he thinks. It’s all he’s got.

Then there’s a roar from the crowd – just now visible through the light, a few hundred of them, men in suit jackets and women in cocktail dresses – and Charles blinks to see his opponent emerge into the ring. Cave Lion, no doubt.

Perhaps seven feet tall, with a veritable mane of golden brown hair. A blunted, flat nose not unlike that of a predator cat. Plus claws and fangs.

They’ve given Cave Lion no additional weapon; obviously, he doesn’t need one. The way he snarls across the ring (packed dirt, harsh spotlights beating down hot) makes it clear that he not only accepts the combat but also loves it. Charles realizes now that he was chosen precisely because he’d provide such a feeble fight. He’s simply the fresh meat. Tonight’s attraction isn’t a battle; it’s a slaughter.

A bell rings, and Cave Lion charges.

Shit, Charles thinks, and then it occurs to him he’ll have to do more than swear, just in time to throw himself aside and avoid the first tackle. Cave Lion’s broad hand-paw sweeps across, claws so close to Charles’ face he can feel the breeze of them, and though he ducks backward, the next sweep makes contact square across Charles’ ribs.

The wham seems to reverberate through the ring, or maybe that’s just his head – the new scars ache – and Charles somehow turns the fall into a roll. He’s back on his feet, but too late, because Cave Lion’s upon him.

This time he doesn’t waste his blow on the mesh vest. His claws slash Charles’ skin, and as he cries out Cave Lion grabs him – flesh on flesh –

\--God, the murderous rage in that head, it’s terrifying, being here has changed him from man to beast –

With all the might remaining to him, Charles projects, _Let me go, NOW._

Cave Lion leaps back, as if stung.

The crowd shrieks; they don’t know what’s happened, only that this is more interesting than they thought. Charles clutches at his bleeding arm. The cuts aren’t deep, but any injury is one more count against him, one he can hardly afford. Amid the clamor, he hears Erik’s voice shout his name – if only he could at least tell which way to turn. If he couldn’t se Erik’s face, at least Erik could see his.

Cave Lion’s eyes have turned black, totally black; it’s as if the beserker rage has erased his humanity completely. He roars like some predator beast, then charges once again.

Charles tries the hammer – what the hell – and it makes satisfying contact with Cave Lion’s shoulder, but slows him down only for a moment. Cave Lion wraps his broad hand-paw around Charles’ throat, and instantly everything goes taut and black.

 _Let go_ , Charles thinks again. _Let me go!_ But it’s not as effective this time, now that it's no longer a surprise. The suggestion is powerful enough to muddle Cave Lion’s thinking, but not enough to make him release his chokehold grip.

There’s only one failsafe move Charles knows, so he gives it a try – and manages to swing his steel hammer straight into Cave Lion’s crotch.

A roar, and Charles is dropped unceremoniously to the arena floor. The crowd watching laughs. It would sicken Charles if he had more time to think about it, but he doesn’t, because Cave Lion has regained his bearings and is even angrier than before.

Cave Lion seizes Charles by the torso this time, lifting him high again while avoiding skin contact, and obviously preparing to throw him to the ground for a death blow. Twisting wildly in the air, Charles drops the hammer and grabs Cave Lion’s bare arms.

This time he doesn’t bother with orders. This time, he pushes inside Cave Lion’s mind, sees through him for a moment. His senses are sharper than normal – part of his mutation – so much so even through the muting effect of the drugs that this brilliant light is almost blinding, the roar of the crowd almost painful.

All Charles has to do is amplify his sensitivity. Times 1000.

More volume. More brightness. More than any mind could take –

Cave Lion roars again, this time in agony from the sonic shrieking in his head. He collapses to the ground, Charles beside him; Charles knows better than to let go. But Cave Lion is too paralyzed by the sensory overload to do much, so Charles can reach out with one hand to grab his hammer again.

For a moment, even through the adrenalin haze of panic, Charles sees this clearly. He can read the faces of the cheering, jeering spectators. He can see the mutants who serve as guards. He knows why he is here and why he has to do this. And he knows he’s about to kill a man.

 _Raven._

Then Charles smashes the hammer down on Cave Lion’s skull as hard as he can. Cave Lion collapses into the dirt, limp. Trickles of blood ooze down on either side of the hammer, blood and something else, and Charles thinks he’s going to vomit.

Another bell rings. The match has ended. He’s won, if this is winning.

Charles stumbles toward the gangplank, but already the pain he was too frightened to feel before is taking him over. His ribs feel like small blades stabbing him with every movement; his arm might as well be on fire. When he makes it to the holding pen, he stumbles to his knees.

“Plenty of tokens for you,” Azazel says. “The Jailer lost a wager, though. Bet you’re back in the ring before long. Anyone want to clean this up?”

“I will,” says Erik who is somehow here by his side, Erik with no more than a cloth to see to his wounds, but what matters is that Charles is with a friend. “Let me.”

Azazel doesn’t care, obviously. Med staff are clearly reserved only for keeping mutants alive, not well. “Five minutes.”

“Oh, God,” Charles says as he slumps to the floor. The horror of it is welling up in him now as Erik cradles Charles’ head in his lap and sets to work tending his arm. “What have I done?”

“You killed someone who wanted to kill you first. You stayed alive. That’s an end of it.”

“No.” It’s so much worse than that. “You don’t understand.”

“You think I don’t understand?” Erik’s dark eyes are more haunted than he would ever want anyone to see. “The first man I killed – vilest scum of the earth – and still, after, I couldn’t sleep for days.”

They should talk about this. Charles knows there’s a price to be paid for what he did to Cave Lion. But that’s not what’s destroying him right now. “No, Erik. I saw Raven.”

“What?” Erik halts, staring down at Charles. “What do you mean?”

Charles closes his eyes against the terrible knowledge, against the roar of the crowd for the next match, already begun. “Raven’s here, but she’s not a prisoner. She’s a guard. She’s one of the ones running the jail.”


	3. Erik

Yesterday, Erik had been quite confident that the best way to endure Dead Man’s Paradise was to keep your head low and not make any waves.

Today, however, he is the ally of the man who killed Cave Lion, and it turns out that’s enough to earn them respect or what passes for it here. They are given a wide berth in the work yard, and this gives them the liberty to talk.

“They said some of the guards were once prisoners.” Charles’ voice is low and desperate; he’s been worrying over this the way stupid men will worry a wound, making it bleed worse instead of enduring the pain while it scabs over. “That has to be what happened. She’d never willfully join a monstrosity like this.”

“Are you sure it was her?” Erik has asked before, but he’s never been satisfied with the answer. “She’s not the only mutant with the ability to shapeshift. Someone else might have seen her, taken her form.”

“Why? To what purpose? Besides, I know. It was something about the way she looked at me – seeing me as a killer – Erik, I’m positive it was Raven.”

The depth of shame Charles feels concerns Erik as much as the bruises from the battle, or the way he guards his aching side. “Sit a moment, would you? Today no one will call you out for it.”

Charles doesn’t sit, but he leans against one of the cinderblock walls. The shafts of light are slightly brighter here; Erik thinks they may actually be real sunshine, though greatly filtered. He’s very interested in discovering where the thinnest walls are, the shortest distance between here and potential freedom. He and Charles will need to know someday soon. Erik must believe this.

As a man who’s spent his entire adult life stripping away baggage to travel light, without a trace – physically and emotionally – Erik feels the new weight of his concern for Charles. He knew from the moment he saw Shaw that he wouldn’t leave Dead Man’s Paradise without killing him; he’s not sure when he became equally convinced that he would not leave without Charles, but that’s no less true.

He knows why he’s so powerfully drawn to this man. These desires are ones he’s acted on before, in alleys and the back rooms of certain illegal clubs. Always it’s been furtive, filthy, something to despise. Erik is proud to have been born a mutant, but this deviation from the norm is one he always felt ashamed of … until Charles.

Now Erik sees just how much more this can be. It doesn’t have to be mere lust (though he feels that too, late at night, as he watches Charles sleep in a bunk just inches away). It can be tender. Protective. Overpowering.

None of that changes the fact that Charles is apparently deeply in love with this woman named Raven, so much that he’s willing to sacrifice himself for her.

But Erik has never expected a happy ending for his life. He knows he’ll die young and harshly. If along the way he can keep Charles safe – and yes, Raven too, because he already knows a promise sworn to Charles is one he must keep – that’s more than he used to hope for.

“You realize that Raven’s role as a guard gives us an opportunity,” Erik says.

Charles glances over. His forehead is still braced against the cinderblocks; the strangely filtered sunlight washes them out of color, turns everything the strange green-gray of beach glass. “What do you mean?”

Erik taps his collar. The metal in it sings to him, even with the dampener; what little power he retains would allow him to break it, but he needs it now – which is the point. “The guards must have access to the antidote. We’ll need it if we’re going to get out of here and remove these damned collars.”

Nodding, Charles says, “And a store of antidote would give us a chance to start a rebellion.” When Erik stares, he says, “We can’t leave this madhouse standing. If we rise up together, take it down, join forces – this could be more than a mere escape, Erik. It could be a beginning.”

Is this madman actually hoping to start a revolution when he ought to be thinking about saving his skin, and that of the woman he loves? Apparently so.

And yet. A week ago, Erik had envisioned a world not so different than this, one with mutants as jailers. Humans had been the prisoners in his scenario, and there had been no need for Shaw’s craven profiteering and sadism – only for a final peace he’d believe that could come when the superior species took its place.

But now he has seen what that truly looks like, and how unspeakably ugly it is.

Erik has a lot of thinking to do.

“I only hope Raven will listen,” Charles says. “She’s seen me at my worst, now.”

“She’s seen you at your bravest,” Erik says, and he can’t imagine Raven not loving Charles back.

Maybe they’ll get the antidote after all.

**

At the end of a long day’s brutal toil, they are herded back into their cells. Erik keeps cataloging the ways this is different from the concentration camp; focusing on the differences is the main thing that keeps him from being overwhelmed by how much is the same. The subterranean feel of the place is the main alteration – not all of this place is underground, he thinks, but it has the claustrophobic effect of a mine shaft. The heat is another difference; the engines they work with are allowed to vent into this building, perhaps. The metal grates that form each wall give the illusion of openness but cloud sight – movement appears odd through it. In the camp, there was some basic feeling of solidarity with one another too; the mutants lack this. The bond he and Charles have formed is the exception and not the rule.

And here, the guards are the same as the prisoners.

No sooner are they back in their cells – even before Erik has walked to his bunk to sit down – a guard calls out his name.

Instinctively he looks through the mesh wall at Charles on the other side, who appears stricken. They shouldn’t be so surprised: It’s his second day. He would have had to fight today or tomorrow, one.

Nor is Erik afraid for himself. He’s killed enough to know he’s good at it.

But it’s harder than he would have expected to see Charles’ fear for him.

“What’s this?” Someone else demands. “You don’t cull before dinner!” This, apparently, is one of the few rules people put their faith in.

The guard shrugs his feathered shoulders. “This isn’t for the games. Don’t know what you did, Lehnsherr, but the Jailer wants to see you.”

Damn it straight to hell.

Charles leans closer to the grate that separates them and puts his palm against the mesh; Erik has to resist the urge to reach toward him. “I’ll explain later,” Erik says, though at the moment he’s not sure there will be a later.

Shaw recognized him.

Erik had assumed that Sebastian Shaw would no more personally review every inmate’s record at Dead Man’s Paradise than the Nazis in charge of concentration camps concerned themselves with the people they imprisoned. Now he realizes he has been staring so hard at the past that he failed to see the facts of the present. The mutants here are not merely numbers to their keepers, the way the Jews were in the camps; here they are curiosities with unique powers that can be used to amuse and horrify the humans who pay to watch. Each mutant must be evaluated to see how best they can be used, hurt and humiliated.

That’s a task Sebastian Shaw would never leave to anyone else.

All these years, he’s planned to see Shaw again. He never thought to be once more brought before that man in chains. Erik would gladly have died rather than see this day.

But the day is here, and it must be borne, and as long as Erik lives, he still has a chance to kill Shaw. This meeting might show him the way. He must remain focused and calm.

Erik finds himself thinking of Charles – who is a calming presence, in his own maddening way. Pretending Charles is with him seems to help. So Erik imagines Charles by his side, taking the padded, grimy elevator upward, walking along a long corridor of polished stone and finally entering an utterly normal executive’s office.

Even this pretense doesn’t help when Erik hears Shaw laugh.

“ _Mein lieber Junge_ ,” Shaw says as he steps out from behind his desk. The bastard looks younger now than he did when he called himself Schmidt. “ _Ich habe mich oft gefragt, was aus dir geworden ist_.”

“English,” Erik growls. “You’ve brought yourself to England, so speak English.”

“As if it makes any difference.” Shaw stands there, hands behind his back, looking Erik over as if he were a prize racehorse, newly purchased. “You’ve grown strong. No one would ever think you’d been hungry a day in your life.”

There were days Erik could only have earned a crust of bread by moving metal, and on most of those days, he’d failed. The collar around Erik’s neck seems to have tightened, and he feels the chafing of the cuffs around his wrists.

“What? Are you angry now?” An excited gleam in his eyes, Shaw begins to pace around Erik, slow and intent. Erik tries to focus on something else, so he stares at Shaw’s desk, with its fountain pens jutting up from a marble stand, and an utterly mundane in/out box on one corner. “Anger always made you stronger, Erik. Anger and hate. You should be stronger than ever at the moment – but the drugs still hold you back, don’t they? I’ve been thinking of testing the drugs with certain stimuli, learning how badly some of the inmates can be hurt before they overcome the drugs – when of course they will be drugged once more – ”

It’s beginning all over again.

Panic and anger overcome any sense of caution. They don’t overcome the drugs – his powers are still almost entirely in check – but as Erik has learned, you don’t need mutant powers to kill a man.

In a flash, he lunges toward Shaw and yanks his bound hands around Shaw’s neck – turning his cuffs into a makeshift garrote. Shaw, caught off-guard, stumbles backward, and Erik presses his advantage, pulling as hard and far back with his shoulders as he can, hoping the links of the chain cut deep into Shaw’s neck.

But Shaw throws them both against the wall with astonishing strength, and with Erik’s balance uncertain, Shaw is able to twist out of the lock. He backhands Erik so savagely that Erik’s head hits the wall and he is dazed.

“Guards!” Shaw bellows, and the mutant Quislings appear to surround Erik. Something hard jabs into his side, and then electrical shock lances through him, a pitchfork of flame, and Erik has to bite his tongue until it bleeds to hold back the scream.

His legs go wobbly, and he tumbles to his knees. Shaw clutches his chin hard between his fingers. “I hope you last a long time in here,” Shaw says, breathing hard. “I’ve always enjoyed watching you suffer. Remember that, while you work and fight and rape and starve. Remember that you’re putting on a show for me, and I’m loving every moment of it.”

**

By the time Erik is brought back to the cells, the night’s battles in the arena have begun. Many of the prisoners have gone to watch; the rest huddle on their bunks, sleeping or just trying to pretend they’re somewhere else.

Charles, on the other hand, has clearly been waiting. When Erik is essentially thrown onto his bunk, Charles lies on his own so close by, almost by Erik’s side. He whispers, “Did they hurt you? What did they want with you? Erik – are you all right?”

Erik’s jaw aches as he speaks; Shaw’s fingers have bruised him. “I wasn’t tortured, if that’s what you mean. The Jailer and I, we knew one another before.” When Charles frowns, confused, Erik stretches out his arm to show his tattoo.

“Wait – you don’t mean – ” Charles gapes. “Are Nazis somehow involved in this?”

“No. Yes. It’s complicated.” Erik despairs of explaining his long, tormented history with Shaw, or even summing up who and what Shaw is. But then he realizes he doesn’t have to explain.

Even with his powers diminished by the drugs and that wretched plate in his head, Charles remains a telepath.

Erik puts his hand on the metal grate between him and Charles and concentrates. The alloy is a sturdy one – but the stronger the metal, the deeper Erik’s connection to it. Once he could have torn this apart almost without thinking about it. Now, though, with all his will, he’s just able to trace the edges with his powers and slowly, slowly bend. One of the diamond-shaped spaces in the grate splays outward until it’s just large enough to stick two fingers through.

It occurs to him that this will be more than a simple exchange of facts; what does it really mean, opening up his mind to someone? What will Charles know and not know about him? The brief touch when they first met told Charles so much, but this will go far deeper. Erik, who has spent his entire life figuring out how to remain hidden and protected, feels even more exposed than he did on his knees in Shaw’s office.

“You should know,” he says hoarsely. “You have to see where I’ve been if you want to know where we are.”

And he pushes his fingers through the grate, offering them to Charles.

There’s a brief pause. Around them, the smell of unwashed bodies and the weak gray light seems somehow more oppressive than before – as if Erik is asking for a miracle from the depths of the mire. Charles takes a deep breath, then twines his fingers with Erik’s. Their eyes meet for a moment, and then –

\--Then Erik is looking at Shaw for the first time, staring at the way the light reflects off the small cool circles of his glasses. The door opens, and the guards bring in Mama, and for the last time in Erik’s life he feels hope.

\--Then Erik is melting snow in his red, chapped hands so that Magda will have some water to drink, but it’s so little, such a pitifully small thing to do for her, and she tries to smile at him through lips that have already cracked with the desiccation of death.

\--Then Erik is walking through the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, his eyes on the back of Friedrich Haber’s neck. He puts his hand in the pocket of his trenchcoat and feels the stiletto’s blade against his palm, singing.

\--Then Shaw is laughing as Mama lies dead, and the blood trickles across the floor until a rivulet traces the outline of Erik’s shoe.

\--Then Shaw is staring down at Erik on his knees in the Jailer’s office, telling him how much he will enjoy the suffering to come.

The past fades away like milky fog, and Erik lies once again on his bunk. He blinks to clear his vision, and he sees Charles lying beside him. Tears have welled in Charles’ blue eyes, but there is something steady in him despite this that Erik is drawn to. Charles does not pull his fingers away, and the touch is the greatest comfort Erik’s known in years.

“What’s done can’t be undone,” Charles whispered. “But I swear to you, my friend – we will find a way out of this. A way to defeat Shaw. And then you will be free.”


	4. Charles

Mutant souls are no fundamentally better than those of human beings; Charles is in a position to know. He’s no stranger to the darkness within men, who have been projecting their unguarded thoughts at him since before he could put them in any context. Sometimes he’s surprised that he turned out sane.

And yet what Erik has shown him is terrifying.

They’re in the hands of a monster: Charles knew that much. But the specificity of Shaw’s sadism, the glee he takes in it, is another grade of horror altogether.

Worse yet, Shaw is a man who knows how to run such an operation for years and years. They can’t hope for any simple, stupid error in the structure of Dead Man’s Paradise to give them their liberty.

What Charles saw about Erik’s own capacity for violence, on the other hand, has not shocked him in the slightest. He knows, perhaps better than Erik does, that every murder Erik has committed was at its core an effort to protect the future from the evils of the past.

Charles can’t say that for his own murder – that was only about saving his own skin. He sighs heavily as he stirs on the scratchy prison blanket, resolving to think of it later. For now all that matters is that nothing he’s seen in Erik could make him want to turn away.

Erik sleeps next to Charles, breaths too quick; apparently what he has lived through follows him even into his dreams, allowing him no true rest. His hand lies very near the small opening he made in the mesh. They did not let go of one another until sleep did it for them. Charles props up on one elbow, looking down at Erik’s face. He would like to brush his hair back and press his lips to Erik’s forehead. Maybe that would smooth away the worried creases there even now.

After this touch, he knows Erik would like that too. His perceptions of Erik’s mind were far cloudier than they would once have been, and they were concentrating on other matters, but Charles gleaned that much.

When we’re free, Charles thinks. When we’re free, there will be time for everything in the world.

**

Near the end of the third day's work shift, they’re separated.

A separate work detail – that’s all there is to it, apparently, though he comprises a detail of exactly one person – but Charles still can’t help glancing back at Erik as he’s herded in a different direction, away from the workyard. Erik’s dark eyes follow Charles as he walks away, but his face reveals nothing.

Charles asks the guard, “Where am I going?”

The guard looks utterly normal except for his vividly green hair. “A note in your record. You know how to do something we need done.”

Well, that’s vague. Charles decides to use this opportunity; this is the first time he’s been one-on-one with a guard since the immediate aftermath of the surgery on his head. “How did you come to be here? At Dead Man’s Paradise.”

“Got picked up for burglary.” The guard grins. “My feet stick to walls and ceilings. Had a talent for it, you might say.”

“So you were once a prisoner here.”

“’s what I said.”

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Don’t you think mutants deserve better than this?”

“The world’s not about what you deserve. It’s about what you get, and what you take for yourself.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

The green-haired guard is unmoved. “Tell me that tomorrow, Little Lord Fauntleroy.”

What’s special about tomorrow? Or perhaps – what’s special about tonight?

Before Charles can think on it in any more detail, the guard opens a door and pushes him inside. He recognizes the medical area on a level almost beyond the conscious; the last time he was here, they were cutting his head open with not nearly enough anesthesia and memory has mercifully grayed that experience almost to nothing. It’s as sterile as a hospital but somehow even more joyless.

Lying on a steel table, motionless, is the one who can’t die. He’s wearing regular prison togs, apparently uninjured, but he’s unnaturally still, more like someone in a coma than someone asleep.

A figure steps out of the corner to stand next to that table – lithe, naked and blue.

Charles’ eyes meet Raven’s for the first time in a year, and he wants to shout, or hug her, or cry. She doesn’t even smile.

“He won’t move,” she says, pointing at the mutant who can’t die. “They went farther than usual last night. None of us are sure whether he’s faking some kind of trance or if he didn’t come back this time. You need to find out.”

“What difference does it make?” Charles doesn’t reveal that he knows Raven any more than she revealed she knew him; maybe she’s trying to play this cool, but maybe there’s a tactical reason she isn’t letting the green-haired guard realize this.

“If we can’t snap him out of it, he’ll be burned down to ash. Probably that would finish him.” Raven says this so matter of factly that Charles’ stomach turns over. “You can wake him up even if it is a trance, can’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

She stares at him; it would have been well within his powers before.

Charles reaches his hand up to the new scars on the side of his head, where the hair is still growing back prickly short. “There’s very little left,” he says quietly. “Of what I used to do.”

That affects her – he sees her suck in a breath, blue rib cage outlined vividly against the white wall. But Raven regains her calm in an instant and points at the mutant on the table. “Do something or he goes in the incinerator.”

Erik’s memories make that word even more terrible than it would be already. So Charles goes to the mutant and lays his hand across the man’s head.

It turns out the mutant is very much awake and aware. But the prods they’ve used to try and get him to his feet haven’t worked because he just doesn’t care any longer. Being burned sounds like as good a way to go as any other, assuming he can die at all, and he’s about ready to find out.

Logan. That’s his name. Logan. And his memories go back, and back –

\--Snow falling thick across the Canadian wilderness, the smell of it unnaturally sharp in his nose, filled with information about how wet the air is, how far away the geese are and the plants slumbering beneath the earth.

\--New York City, but so long ago that there are horse-drawn wagons rolling along Broadway, with gaslights flickering and the sky overhead still dark enough to show the stars.

\--Japan, before the war, God only knows how far back, with Mt. Fuji placid and blue against the pink light of dawn.

\--The arena, always the arena, and night after night they set the other mutants on him, and he fights because he can’t not fight, but they send so many that eventually they’re able to rip his flesh from his bones, and the audience screams its joy as he bleeds out on the floor and his damned body just grows back to take the punishment all over again.

 _If you give up,_ Charles thinks, _they win._

 _They win anyway. You haven’t noticed?_

 _Not if some of us begin to work together._

 _Nobody does that here._

 _Not before. But we do now._

 _You’re talking nonsense. But what the fuck. I can always let ‘em burn me some other day._

Logan opens his eyes and glares at Charles, but all the same, Charles knows he has one more ally.

Raven says to the green-haired guard, “Put the Wolverine back in his cell. I’ll take this one down later.”

The guard does as she asks. Logan shoots Charles another look as he goes, mostly skeptical but not without some shred of hope. This is someone else he doesn’t want to let down.

But all thoughts of Logan vanish from Charles’ mind as the door shuts and he is at last alone with Raven.

“My God,” Charles says, bracing himself against the metal table. “You’re all right.”

“I’m better than all right.” Raven lifts her chin. How hard it is to see her looking proud of herself for this; how much harder it is to think that he never gave her other reasons to be proud. She would become anything now, gladly, just to prove to Charles that she could be something other than what he expects. “Shaw lets me come and go as I please. I’m useful to him. See, Charles? There are people who appreciate what I am. What I can do.”

He can well imagine it. The rich and powerful who crowd into the galleries every night much be approached, courted and pampered. It’s pure luck that he saw Raven in a form he knew; she probably takes endless beguiling shapes, glamorous or handsome by turns, and revels in her ability to manipulate whomever she sees.

But there’s one thing Charles knows, and Raven must know it too: Being appreciated for what she isn’t the same as being loved for who she is.

“You can have no idea of Shaw’s history. What he’s capable of.”

“And you do?”

“Yes.” Charles holds out his hand, offering her a glimpse of what he saw through Erik, but she shrinks back. He knows that to force contact at this moment, mental or physical, would be to lose her forever. So he continues, “Shaw is merely using you.”

“He isn’t ignoring me.”

“Is that the only moral standard you’ve got? Whether or not attention’s being paid?”

“It’s more than you ever gave me.”

Charles feels it like a slap. “That’s not true.”

“It’s true enough, and you know it.”

This must not turn into a petty argument. There is so much more at stake here than his relationship with Raven, dear though it is to him. And yet he has to know where he stands, or he can’t determine what to do next. Quietly Charles says, “Do you hate me, Raven?”

The cold medical room is so silent that Charles can hear the rise and fall of her breath. He is vividly aware of her nudity, the mixture of vulnerability and challenge it represents. If he had kissed “Sharon Tilney,” if he had rolled over in bed one the of nights he awoke to sense Raven curled beside him, if at any point he’d tried not to think of her as a sister, would they be here now? Would it have been worth it, if he had?

Very softly – almost timidly, a tone he hasn’t heard from her since she was a runaway child stealing food from his kitchen – Raven says, “Of course I don’t.”

New hope floods in. “Then let’s get out of this place together. Let’s take as many people as we can, at once, and later – later we can tear Dead Man’s Paradise down brick by brick. My friend Erik can help us. Logan too – the one you called Wolverine – and surely there are others Shaw hasn’t crushed yet.”

Raven’s golden eyes stare at him, unblinking. “You honestly think we can defeat Shaw?” She’s almost laughing at him. “You have no idea of his power.”

“And he has no idea of ours. If we get the antidote – and you can do that, can’t you? If we get the antidote, there are mutants in here who would put Shaw to shame.” His fingers touch the scars at his temple again, rueful now. “I won’t be one of them until – never mind that. We can do this, Raven. We have to.”

“What then, Charles? Do we go back home? Do I put on my slave skin and serve your friends tea?”

Slave skin – dear God, he never imagined for a moment she saw it that harshly. “We build something new. Something else to bring mutantkind together, something better than this. Not that anything wouldn’t be better than this.”

She cocks her head. “You honestly think it could go any other way?”

“Of course,” he replies, astonished she could even ask. But after months in Dead Man’s Paradise, the depth of her cynicism must be almost measureless.

Then Raven says, “You’re not better than this place. Don’t pretend you are.”

It’s as if Charles is once again on the arena floor, staring down at blood and brain fluid leaking from beneath the hammer he holds. Raven is in the galleries high above staring down at her brother, the one who always scolded her and tried to make her behave.

The murderer.

Shame muzzles him, and he can no longer meet her eyes.

“We’re the same,” Raven hisses. Raw pain shakes in her voice. “We always were, you just wouldn’t admit it. Well, now we know. The only difference is that I don’t pretend to be any better than I am. You’ll keep being Charles the good, Charles the holy, until it kills you.”

“Raven – ”

“I call myself Mystique now.” She slaps a switch on the wall; he understands that this must be some sort of signal for the other guards. He’s about to be dragged below again. “I don’t hate you. If you ever come to your senses – if you ever accept that you’re not better than everyone else – send word to me. I’d be happy to introduce you to Shaw. Bet he’d like to meet you. And Charles – ”

Her words choke off, and he realizes she’s as close to tears as he is. “What?”

Raven clasps her hands together, an old gesture he knows means she is making a solemn promise. “I won’t watch tonight.”

The guards enter and pull him out before he can ask what that means. But within seconds, the answer comes to him in a horrifying, scalding rush:

The Night Games.


	5. Erik

Erik knows he must fight tonight, but that’s not why he flinches when he hears the guards come in. It’s because he can hear the unmistakable sound of a body being dragged.

He rises to his feet. Dinner was wretched torment with this extra weight over him – the weight of knowing that Charles isn’t with the other workers. The only reason that can be true is because Charles has drawn special notice in some way. That makes it all the more likely that Shaw is interested in Charles, and there are few things in this world more toxic than the interest of Sebastian Shaw.

The thought of Charles enduring the experiments Erik endured, the thought of Shaw laughing at his pain the way he laughed at Erik’s – it’s grotesque. Erik’s jaw has been clenched hard for almost an hour now, and his head throbs.

The body they’re dragging in isn’t Charles’, though; it’s that rough one who never talks, the one who can’t die. When they toss him into Erik’s pen, nobody else pays much attention.

And yet Erik crosses the pen and helps guide the man toward his bunk. It’s what he would have wanted to do for Charles – what Charles would have wanted to do for anybody. It’s as if Charles is acting through him.

Love appears to be a lot like possession. Who would have thought?

The rough guy looks up and says, “Thanks.”

Erik shrugs. Possession only takes you so far.

To Erik’s surprise, the mutant – who has not spoken more than two words at a time at any point during his imprisonment – continues talking. “Your pal’s got big plans.”

“Charles is all right?”

“So far as I know. Seems to think he’s got this place all figured out.”

“He’s a dreamer,” Erik says. “But he has his reasons for hope.”

“That blue chick acts like she knows him. Mystique.”

That can only mean Raven. Jealousy seizes him in its acid claws as Erik thinks of Charles reunited with his love, perhaps in her arms right now.

And yet, what Charles wants, Erik must want for him. He may silently hate Raven to the end of his days, may forever walk around feeling the outlines of the emptiness within himself where his love for Charles belongs, but Erik would never wish that same solitude on Charles in turn. Besides, this is good news in another sense; their chance at the antidote just improved a hundredfold. “They’ve met,” he says shortly. “She might be willing to help.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” the mutant says as he leans wearily on his forearms. “But who knows? I’ve seen all kinds of shit I never expected to see.” After a pause, he adds, “Logan.”

It’s so abrupt, so unlike what Erik was expecting, that it takes him a minute to realize that he’s just been given a name. “Erik Lehnsherr.”

Logan nods. The entire exchange doesn’t add up to much, but Erik understands that Charles has made an ally. That they both have. It’s still only three against the madness – but somehow that makes it more real. Who has more reason for despair than this poor bastard, who’s been pulled limb from limb at least a hundred times? If Logan still has fight in him, still has some capacity to trust, then there are others in here who will as well.

It has been so long since Erik thought about building instead of destroying.

The clanging of the doors means yet more guards, and Erik looks up in hopes of seeing Charles. But Charles isn’t with Azazel or the others who have just marched in. Azazel says, “Any volunteers for the Night Games?”

Most of the mutants shrink down, but one burly man with a torso twice as wide as it should be shouts, “Let me at the cunts!”

Logan’s lip curls in contempt. “Fucking bastard.”

“You don’t approve,” Erik says in a tone that makes it clear he doesn’t either.

“That’s as disgusting as it gets in here,” Logan says, which Erik considers remarkable from a man who has been disemboweled for public amusement. “Fortunately, that’s the one part of this shindig I get to skip.” When Erik looks at him, puzzled, Logan explains, “Sometimes they kill the losers. It’s random. Makes sure people follow through, whether they want to or not. Me, I can’t get killed, and I don’t get off on that shit. The one time they threw me in the ring for that, I just let the lady beat the crap out of me. She had a right hook like a fucking sledgehammer. The Jailer decided I was no fun in the Night Games.”

And as if on cue, Azazel yells, “Lehnsherr! Get out here.”

“Scheiss,” Erik mutters. Logan shoots him an unreadable look as Erik trudges forward, angry but resigned. Azazel claps cuffs on him (plastic this time, he notes) and drags him along with a few other men, including Burly Guy, who is practically drooling. They shuffle through a corridor into a waiting area, which – unlike the one for combat – is totally separate from the ring.

Each of them is put in an individual booth and uncuffed. Azazel says, “Strip down.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

When Azazel holds out the prod, though, Erik does as he’s told. The uniform crumples in a heap on the floor, and he’s standing naked in his booth when Shaw walks in.

“How you’ve grown,” Shaw says, his smile thin as a switchblade.

Erik is tempted to push a couple of fingers down his throat, the better to vomit in Shaw’s face. But any reaction is more than Shaw deserves.

As Shaw circles him, evaluating, Erik feels a new pride in his scars. The still-fading bruise on one hip was given by Maximilian Kappel, in his very short-lived attempt to resist. The knife mark above his knee was the work of another escaped Nazi, who was still grinning about it when Erik levitated the knife out of his hand and into his throat. The gnarled skin high up on his arm is left over from barbed wire, from his first attempt to escape Buchenwald – proof that even when Shaw had him most in his power, Erik didn’t give up. His entire body is a map of resistance and revenge.

“A hard life,” Shaw says, though he sounds as if he likes the idea. “And still so young.”

“An easy life,” Erik says, with a pointed stare at Shaw’s gray woolen suit. “Though so old.”

Something dangerous glitters in Shaw’s eyes. “I don’t do my work in bar fights and back alleys.”

“No. You do it behind a desk. You use your powers or your minions or a stroke of your pen.” Erik knows Shaw relishes being a dangerous man, so he enunciates the rest: “You’re a bureaucrat.”

Shaw doesn’t respond to that. This is an old sign Erik recognizes, evidence that the game is about to change.

Then Shaw pours something from a bottle into his hand and begins smoothing it upon Erik’s skin. It’s some kind of oil, which smells vaguely medicinal but would feel good if it were being applied by anyone else. Each movement is infused with a strange mixture of sensuality and ownership; it’s the way a man would rub down a good horse after a run. As Shaw’s hand strokes the area between Erik’s shoulder blades, he murmurs, “So, Erik, I hear you’ve made a friend.”

No. Not this. Please no.

“The guards say you two are inseparable.” Shaw’s fingers trace down Erik’s spine to the curve of his ass. “How touching. I remember that from Buchenwald, how close people would sometimes become in so short a time. And how quickly those bonds could be dissolved, when the correct pressure was applied.”

 _Leave Charles out of it,_ Erik wants to say. For Charles, he would even beg Shaw. But even saying Charles’ name out loud is an admission – of attachment, or hope, or anything else Shaw could use against them.

“I will say this for you Jews – circumcision is the more attractive option.” Shaw’s hand weighs Erik’s flaccid cock as he might a fish at the market. “You’ll make a fine spectacle tonight. I’ll be watching. Who knows? Some evening, I may well step in. Not everything can be done behind a desk.”

Then he jabs at Erik’s collar, and one of the metal prongs stabs through the flesh. Erik winces.

“These collars are marvelous devices,” Shaw murmurs. Erik’s heart has begun hammering almost instantaneously, and he’s aware of the prickling of his skin as ever hair stands on end. “We can inject almost anything. Poison to kill you, antidote to cure you, the drugs that dull your powers, and the hormones that make sure you provide a good show.”

Erik feels it in his balls, his cock. There is nothing more disgusting to him than the fact that he begins to harden in Shaw’s bare hand.

“There we are.” Shaw chuckles. “I can’t wait to see what you’re made of, Erik.”

Then he walks away, leaving Erik alone.

The guards reappear within moments and drag him toward the arena. Another Night Game is already being played, so they hold him by his arms as he sees it all through the grates.

That burly one is in the arena, naked and oiled as Erik is himself, along with a woman … no, a girl. She can hardly be out of her teens: dark-skinned and wide-eyes, utterly exquisite, from her petite frame to her high, youthful breasts and the vibrant insect wings that sprout from her back. Erik watches, pained, as she tries to fly – but perhaps the drugs keep her from achieving full flight. She only manages to hover slightly out of the burly one’s reach for a few seconds before descending to the ground again and having to run.

“Come here!” the burly one shouts. His mutated body is not one of the more pleasant ones – his heavy torso makes him lumber, off-balance, and his ugliness is in sharp contrast to the delicate girl. He keeps looking up into the gallery and winking; his desire to please the crowd through rape makes the scene even more revolting. “Give it up!”

She runs harder, just barely dodging his broad grasp, before becoming airborne again. It’s not much, not very high, but enough to keep her free. She does something like spitting at him, but there’s frustration behind the gesture, as if she expected it to actually help. Perhaps there’s more she can do when she’s not doped.

Erik realizes there’s a metal contraption in the middle of the arena – a harness, with a clamp that can fasten around a wrist or leg, maybe even a throat. Victory comes when one person is chained and unable to effectively resist. Then they are raped for the pleasure of the crowd, and perhaps the attacker, if he is as coarse as the burly one now trying to hunt the young girl.

The burly one shouts, “I’m gonna poke that pussy ‘til she bleeds!” and the vile crowd shouts its approval. Erik remembers what he did to Kappel with the railroad spike and wishes for another chance to do the same.

But then the girl flings herself in the air to fall again – at the perfect angle to kick the burly guy in the head so forcibly that he’s caught off guard, and off balance. He topples to the floor, and quick as a flash she’s got his hand in the harness. The metal clamps around his wrist, and the audience starts screaming in delight.

The girl looks like she’d rather walk away, but she knows the script, knows what she must do. She walks to the edge of the arena, where a stiff wooden pole lies. It fits in her grip easily, and she returns to the burly one, who is now desperately and futilely attempting to pull his way free.

“Don’t do it!” he shrieks. “Don’t, don’t, don’t!”

But she does. Erik averts his eyes as hoarse screaming fills the arena. The applause is deafening.

When the bell rings, the guards push Erik forward. “Your turn,” Azazel says in a low, gravelly whisper. Erik looks at him and thinks, _When this ends, I’ll kill you first._

He is shoved into the arena. On the grimy floor are drops of blood, stains and streaks of countless battles and rapes. Erik thinks that’s the worst thing he can see, until they push Charles out there with him.

Charles, Erik thinks. Naked, he’s beautiful – slender but wiry, not exceedingly masculine except for the hairiness of his chest and the extraordinary length of his cock. His lips are flushed red, his pupils blown. They’ve drugged him even more heavily than they have Erik.

The metal harness stands between them, shining and silent, testament to what one must do to the other before the night is through.

Shaw doesn’t only want to make Erik a rapist; he wants him to know the degradation of raping the only person in the world that matters to him. Erik may be willing to revisit his opinion on whether or not there should be an afterlife, if only there’s a hell vile enough for Sebastian Shaw.

Charles sucks in a sharp breath at the sight of Erik; drugged and dazed as he is, he’s not beyond recognizing his friend. It both heartens and shatters Erik to see it. There’s no time for messages, though, no time for apologies or plans. The bell rings, and the match is on.

Erik rushes at Charles, not stopping to think. He tackles him broadly, taking them both to the floor. Charles gasps, “Erik!”

“Make a show of it,” Erik growls. “Make them believe it.”

He tries to push Charles’ head into the ground, but Charles shoves back, and Erik lets the force propel him farther than it would have to. As he topples to his hands and knees, Charles leaps upon him.

“We can’t,” Charles breathes, pretending to wrestle Erik down. And oh, God, if only it were the drugs that made this feel good, Charles’ oiled body against his, the pale beauty of his chest and thighs revealed to Erik for the first time. “Erik, please, we can’t.”

“We must.” Erik rolls, pinning Charles beneath him. Their faces are so close that he can feel Charles’ breath on his lips. The drug in his system sings through every blood vessel, responding to every place his skin touches Charles’, urging him to be more animal than man. “Shaw wants it, so we must. But this doesn’t own us, Charles. Remember that.”

With this, Erik loosens his grasp just enough for Charles to pull away. The crowd continues to cheer. When Erik looks upward, he can see that many of the people in the audience are no longer even paying full attention to this desperate struggle; they are kissing each other, touching in ways totally inappropriate in any other public venue. He and Charles are basically the center show at an orgy.

As Charles backs away, Erik follows. Their slick bodies gleam beneath the harsh arena lights; Erik observes the shifting of the muscles in Charles’ arms and legs as he attempts to brace himself. How easily he can imagine it: Charles beneath him, bucking against him, that tightness and heat all around him. Erik wants that so badly his body hurts. He can have it, too; the harness gleams in front of him in silent, hideous promise.

And it’s not as if he even has a choice –

The crowd grows restive; the chase has gone on too long. Erik leaps at Charles again, rolling him toward the center of the arena. Charles struggles against him, but not at his full strength. Is that the drugs at work? It must be.

“It can’t be helped,” Charles whispers, half a sob. His body is splayed beneath Erik’s now, shaking, taut, tempting beyond Erik’s wildest dreams. He can hardly take his eyes from the rise and fall of that thickly furred chest, his tight abdomen. The drugs have him jacked beyond decency or restraint; Erik can even smell Charles’ skin. “I know that, Erik. I know. I won’t blame you.”

“It can’t be helped,” Erik repeats.

He spins them around, a confusing tangle of limbs, right to the harness. When Erik’s hand comes near it, he uses what fraction of his power remains to fasten it shut – around his own wrist.

The losers are sometimes executed at random. Erik could never do that to Charles.

As the crowd begins shrieking in bloodlust, Charles’ horrified eyes meet Erik’s. “No,” Charles whispers.

“Yes.” There’s no way out, now. No way but this.

The drugs in Charles’ bloodstream are having their effect too. His pupils are so large that the blue is almost lost. His hands run along Erik’s body, and if those touches were only real, not merely a reaction to pharmaceutical stimulus, how Erik would revel in them. But here, now, all Erik can do is submit to Charles. To the victor.

“Do it,” Erik mutters over the roar of the crowd. “Do it!”

“God. Forgive me. God forgive me.” Charles sounds as if he is weeping as he pushes Erik onto his knees.

Then Charles seizes Erik at the hips, and Erik feels him probing, and –

Charles shoves inside, brutal and forceful and undeniable. Erik shouts out in pain, though the oil blunts it somewhat; it’s what the crowd wants to hear. The pressure fills him up, every direction at once, and perhaps this is the closest Erik will ever get to what he really wanted – not close at all, but what he can have. Charles’ arm slings around his neck, not choking him but holding him still, and then Charles is pumping into him, insistent and hard.

By now the crowd is clapping in time with Charles’ thrusts. The stage lights burn down so bright that Erik’s skin seems to burn. The friction and the pain are at one with the pleasure. Erik hates that this is happening by force. He hates that Charles will despise the memory of touching him.

He hates that this will be the only time.

When Charles’ face rests against Erik’s back, when the thrusts become faster and more insistent, Erik whispers, “Let go.”

“Erik.”

“Please, Charles, please, let go, end this.” Erik pushes back with his hips, urging Charles on past the point of restraint. Charles’ belly is firm against his back, Charles’ breaths are fast against the skin of his neck –

\--and then the crowd goes away.

It’s silent. The room is empty, save for Erik and Charles.

Erik realizes that this is all Charles could give him – the lone escape his psychic gifts can provide. He tries to project his gratitude to Charles, but he hardly knows how. It’s enough, for one moment, that they’re alone.

Charles pumps harder, and Erik gives in to it. For a few moments he allows himself to believe that this is truly is private, that Charles really does want it, that this means they are together by their choice and not by force. The pretense and the drugs do their work. Pleasure wells up in him beyond any containment, and he bites down on his lip as he comes, spattering all over the arena floor.

Within seconds, Charles follows, bracing himself against Erik’s shoulders as he thrusts in deeper than before and cries out his own climax. They are alone, together, suspended in a kind of wild animal satisfaction –

\--until the crowd rushes back in. Erik realizes he is harnessed still, possibly bleeding, exposed to them all. Exposed to Shaw.

Charles staggers away, breathing hard, and when their eyes meet, Charles looks sick.

“The winner!” Azazel crows as he strides out to lift Charles’ hand aloft. Erik knows he can get through this as long as he doesn’t look up – as long as he doesn’t see Shaw’s expression of total gratification. So he stares down at the floor and pretends it’s all already over.


	6. Charles

Charles awakens in his bunk, head still fogged, and a dull sick ache in his system that’s not unlike a hangover.

His first thought is of weekends at Oxford, which constitute his main experience of hangovers. He remembers standing on the green with his pretty sister visiting him in her pink dress and her favorite human guise; he remembers hoping that one of his less disreputable friends might turn her head, make her happy and make her forget about him. The sunlight plays in their hair, and the taste of champagne is bright on his tongue.

But as he stirs, he knows that he is far away from sunlight or champagne.

Charles opens his eyes to darkness and memory. He recalls the arena, the smell of blood and sex. He remembers Erik beneath him, splayed wide and gasping, and the way the crowd clapped in time as –

\--as Charles raped him.

Revulsion clenches his gut, and Charles has to put a hand over his lips to keep from spewing bile.

 _Holy,_ Raven had jeered. She said he thought himself holy. Charles believed that was a lie, but God knows he’d thought he was better than a rapist, and he is not.

As his eyes adjust to the darkness, he sees that he’s back in his same cell, in his same bunk. Erik lies next to him; the gap Erik widened in the metal mesh remains, though now that show of confidence and intimacy mocks them both.

How can so little have changed, and yet so much?

Charles feels hot tears stinging his eyes. He looks at the rough prison blanket anew, and stares appraisingly at the rebar strung overhead. Could he rip the blanket into strips and form a noose? If he tried to hang himself, would any of the others stop him? He is a murderer and rapist and deserves no better. Surely they’d be willing to let him swing.

Then he hears a stirring and glances over to see Erik awake and staring at him.

Just meeting Erik’s eyes is as painful as any experience Charles has ever had. But he forces himself to do it. Erik is – was his friend, and he put all his faith in Charles, and Charles deserves to see every moment of recrimination and betrayal Erik has to offer.

Erik says, “You blame yourself.”

Charles nods.

Erik breathes out sharply. “Get over it.” When Charles can only stare at him, Erik continues, “I’ve had worse done to me by men who had a choice. Men who could help it. You couldn’t.”

“But –”

“The only way I’ll blame you is if you try to paint yourself with Shaw’s brush,” Erik mutters. “Shaw designed this to hurt us both. The more we let him get to us, the happier we make him. So pull yourself together. Let it go. I already have. Do you hear me?”

Charles nods. What else can he do? But he has to whisper this much: “I’m sorry.”

“I know that.”

For a few moments, he and Erik look at each other, desolate and bleak, yet conjoined in a way they weren’t before. Charles does at least recognize that what happened in the arena happened to them both. It doesn’t greatly alleviate his guilt, but it makes him understand that he and Erik can still be on the same side.

Finally Erik asks, “What did Raven say?”

Charles forces himself to focus. “She’s – angry. Bitter. Upset with me and with the world. But she has no great love for Shaw; that’s our only hope.”

“Will she bring us the antidote?”

“I don’t know,” Charles confesses. “Not anytime soon, I think.”

Erik sighs heavily. “So what do we do in the meantime? Besides staying alive.” The force behind his words makes it clear that he wants Charles to remain alive no matter what it takes, be it rape or murder. Charles isn’t sure he can agree to that.

So Charles says only, “We continue talking to the others. We see if more will join us, when the chance comes.”

“More like Logan,” Erik says. Charles is slightly heartened; he hadn’t been sure how strongly he got through to Logan, but if he and Erik have already formed some kind of alliance, then there truly is hope.

“Yes. More like Logan.”

Erik’s dark eyes search for his in the early-morning gloom. “I meant what I said. Don’t blame yourself.”

“How can I not?”

“If I don’t blame you, then it’s none of your goddamned business,” Erik retorts. This makes no sense, and yet it helps to know that Erik doesn’t hate him as much as Charles now hates himself.

The only light sputters in its socket, far down the corridor; no one else speaks or even stirs. After a moment, Erik rolls over, apparently determined to go back to sleep.

That wouldn’t be impossible, even as upset as they are; Charles can still feel the heaviness of the drugs on them. But the weariness of Charles’ body is no match for the turmoil in his mind.

He knows that what Erik said makes sense. They were equally forced into the situation, equally deprived of their free will. The fact that Charles wound up being the literal rapist was Erik’s choice, if it was anybody’s, an act of selflessness that Charles must not deny. So why does he hate himself so much for this?

Charles knows the reason. It’s because he knows he’ll never be able to touch Erik again. Erik will never be able to think of them together without remembering that horrible night in the arena. The innocent dreams Charles had only one night ago, of doing something as gentle as kissing Erik’s sleeping brow – those are dead, forever. And rightly or not, it feels as if he’s the one who killed them.

**

That day’s labors are bleak. Charles notices that the burly one who was raped last night is absent; nobody seems to wonder where he is. Was he slaughtered, perhaps, after the games? It’s hard to regret that, given his glee at the thought of committing rape, but Charles wonders how that poor girl feels about it. She is now responsible not only for the burly mutant’s sexual assault but also his death.

Maybe she doesn’t mind. Charles knows that Erik doesn’t wish him dead, but maybe – maybe Erik wouldn’t mind if Charles weren’t around today. Probably he wishes for time away from the man who hurt him, the one who might have been his lover but for this. How can he not? It’s all Charles can do to bear looking at him.

Yet they work side by side, shoving concrete into place, without exchanging a word.

Across the labor field, Logan continues on his way. He has not given either of them a glance of blame or of solidarity. God only knows what he’s thinking. As Charles can no longer even say what he thinks of himself, he doesn’t want to make predictions about others.

When the guards walk in near day’s end, Charles flinches – just from the resumption of this dreadful routine.

But this evening is not routine.

“Better dinner for some of you tonight,” Azazel says. “The Jailer’s called a Corpse Carnival.”

What the hell is that? Charles sees Logan’s eyes narrow; other longtime inmates shrink back.

Azazel looks at him and Erik – the newest among them – and says, “Six fighters, six weapons, and at the end only one walks away alive. A very popular attraction. But you get a decent meal first. Anybody hungry?” Unsurprisingly, nobody is. It hardly matters, Charles realizes; there’s already a prepared list of names, called out one by one –

\--and Erik’s is called last.

“Oh, God,” Charles breathes.

“I’ll see you later,” Erik says, without ever directly looking back at Charles. He walks off, steady and unshaken, toward his fate.

This is why people stop caring in here, Charles realizes. This is why alliances are rare. People give up because they can’t bear this pain of watching someone you love sent to his death.

After they’re gone, Charles slumps against the wall. A firm hand taps him on the shoulder, and he expects to be chastised for slacking off from the final minutes of work – but it’s Logan. “Hang in there,” he says. “Your friend’s tough. You can see it just lookin’ at him.”

“Thanks.” But Charles’ voice sounds hollow even to him.

“Charles Xavier!” It’s the green-haired guard again. He looks exactly as he did yesterday, squat and overly satisfied with himself. “Looks like you’ve pulled another special detail.”

Christ, what now? “Coming.”

All Charles asks is that this duty, whatever it is, not involve watching Erik fight. Or would his presence there help Erik, the way Erik’s did on his first night in the arena?

No. Not after last night.

The green-haired guard roughly pushes him into the dingy elevator, and the trip upstairs begins just like the one yesterday.

But then the guard hits the emergency stop.

“What are you – ” Charles’ words die in his throat as the guard’s uniform melts away, belligerent expression disappearing along with his face, green hair turning red and pale skin turning blue. The armband with its purple stripes is all that remains when Raven reclaims her own form. He sighs. “I never can tell.”

“You never could,” she agrees.

“So, why the ruse?” He leans against one wall and folds his arms across his chest. “You could have collected me yourself.”

Raven stares at him for such a long time that Charles actually wonders whether she’s physically well. Then she says, “I looked at your file.”

“And?”

“The police in New Maiden think there’s a graverobber at work.”

Charles takes that in for a second. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“The murder victim.” When her gold eyes well with tears, the metallic glitter can be almost blinding. “The person you killed to get in here. They couldn’t find the body at the mortuary.”

“Oh. I expect not.”

“There wasn’t a body, was there? You actually didn’t kill anyone.”

“Of course not. I mean – not until the arena,” Charles says heavily.

Raven persists with the stupid questions. “You used your powers to make them think you killed someone, didn’t you?” When Charles nods, she says, “ _Why_?”

“To get in Dead Man’s Paradise and look for you!” Wasn’t it painfully obvious? As obvious as it was evidently futile?

Then she starts to sob, and Charles realizes it wasn’t obvious to her.

“You did this to try to save me,” she chokes out. “All this time, I thought – I thought you must have been using your powers to – I don’t know what. Something awful. You could do awful things if you wanted to. And I remembered how you used to yell at me for stealing a few pounds from the shops, I thought you were such a fucking hypocrite, but all this time you were trying to help me.”

Charles had never realized that she’d believed his failure to love her as a woman meant that he didn’t love her at all. How could they have lived side by side and yet understood each other so little? Raven’s mad yearnings and violent nature don’t change the fact that she is very vulnerable – that something in her will always be that lost child, hungry and frightened, and assuming she will only be accepted in someone else’s skin.

“Come here,” he whispers, and then she’s in his arms, and she’s no longer the only one crying. Charles has never been so glad to feel the soft scales of her back, to hear the rustle of her sharper skin against his clothes. Her grip is so tight – no drugs mute her strength – and the pressure on his many bruises hurts. He would change nothing.

“This place – Charles, it gets in your head, and when I got here I was so scared – ”

Imagining it cuts his heart open. “I know. I know.”

“—so when Shaw decided I could work for him, I thought, this is it, this is all there is for people like us, you kill or get killed –”

“That’s what he wants you to think. What he wants us all to think.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize,” she whispers. The rise and fall of her breath is quick, still too close to sobbing. “I should have known you would come for me.”

“I should have known – I should’ve known so many things. It’s all right, Raven. We’re all right.”

For a long time they just hold one another, and at least one of the wounds Charles has sustained in Dead Man’s Paradise begins to heal. He doesn’t know why he didn’t do this more – just talk with her. Tell her how he felt. Listen.

Raven’s head lies on his shoulder as she says, “I pulled aside some antidote. Not tons – a dozen doses or so – but if you pick the right mutants, that’s enough to tear this place apart.”

Hope springs up wild within him. “The collars?”

“I have a removal key. Once they’re off, the drugs that dull people’s powers wear off in minutes. You have to take the antidote right away, or the poison – anyway, just take it fast. The dose will last long enough for the poison to come out of your system. We can plan something for Monday, maybe – that’s the slowest night and Shaw usually goes out – ”

“Tonight. Now. We stop the Corpse Carnival. My friend Erik – we have to get him out of there.” Charles realizes he should give Raven a reason. “He’s one of the mutants we need most. Besides – I don’t want to do this when Shaw’s gone.” Pacifist though he often is, Charles knows Sebastian Shaw cannot be left alive.

Raven doesn’t like this rush, but she nods. “Okay. We’ll do it. And Charles – I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Shhh. It’s over.” Charles pulls her more firmly into his embrace.

And when he does, she brings her mouth to his.

This is Raven, whom he loves, even if it’s not the kind of love she feels for him. This is what she wants. He’s asked himself and asked himself whether making a different choice would have led them down another path.

There’s no hope of being with Erik, not after last night. Raven is the only person left who could ever really matter.

So when Raven kisses him – quick and impulsive, hardly more than a touch – Charles kisses her back.

She breathes in softly, in surprise, as the kiss goes on. Charles slides his hands up to cradle her face, and the next time he kisses her, he opens his mouth. The taste of her tongue against his is almost shocking to him – not unusual in any sense, but it’s Raven, whom he never expected to kiss the way a man kisses a woman. He traces his fingers down her throat, along the curve of her back, forcing himself to think of her as a beautiful woman. One who desires him. One he should desire.

Raven presses her body against his, and he’s keenly aware of her breasts, firm and full upon his chest. Of her naked pelvis tilted close to his groin. It feels incredibly wrong, and yet there is a perverse kind of arousal welling inside him. He can do this. He will do this.

And yet this is his sister so far as he has ever been concerned, his sister from the day they met –

“Is this what you want?” Charles whispers as he roughly kisses his way down her neck. “Is this the only way you’ll let me love you?”

Raven’s arms tighten around him, and he can feel the pitch of her desire through her skin. After last night, he’s desperately grateful for the fact that this is wanted, freely chosen. Her need is beginning to sink into him, psychic osmosis, and he can use that. Maybe he should just close his eyes and shove her against the wall of the elevator, she’s already naked, he should do it, just do it, take her right here –

But then her hands slide down his chest and push him gently back. “Don’t,” she murmurs. “We shouldn’t.”

“I do love you, Raven,” he protests. “I always have, always will – ”

“I know that now. I didn’t before, but I do.” Raven wipes the last tears from her cheeks, and through her skin he can feel sadness, resignation and a kind of dawning peace. “Knowing that – it’s what I really needed. Not this.” Her blue fingers trace an outline in the space between their faces.

Very quietly he says, “I want to be whatever you need me to be.”

“I need you to be yourself.” She kisses him once more, but it’s as swift as it is tender. And now he feels her girlish exasperation and stubbornness, so familiar to him that despite the tears still on his face he has to smile. “I love you for who you are. Not anybody you could pretend to be.”

They embrace again, but it’s different now. Better than it’s been in a very long time. Charles strokes her red hair as she reaches out to snap the elevator back into motion.

There’s a chance. Really a chance. But he can only pray he has time to save Erik.


	7. Erik

If this is his last meal, at least it isn’t slop.

Erik tears into the steak – it arrives pre-cut, as nobody gets a knife yet. It’s well-cooked though, almost rare, and it tastes like pepper and smoke. There are buttery potatoes, too, and a mass of carrots, as if it’s important that he get his vitamins before he walks to the slaughter.

Not that Erik has any intention of being slaughtered in the Corpse Carnival. He figures he has as good a chance of making it out as any of these others, though the reptilian one looks formidable. No doubt they all have some fragment of their powers; no doubt they all want to live for their own sakes.

But Erik suspects he’s the only one who wants to live for someone else, too.

Before now he never understood what kind of strength that can give him. He always thought that in the end, he fought alone. No matter what else happens, either in Dead Man’s Paradise or beyond it, Erik will never fall prey to that delusion again. Both the horrors he has seen here and the discovery of Charles Xavier have taken him from the path he was on, which led to a darker place than he now cares to go. He only hopes he’ll have the chance to learn where his new path leads.

Though he could happily wolf down twice as much as is on his plate – and there are plates more waiting for them if they want, and most do – Erik stops before his hunger has been entirely sated. Full bellies and fighting don’t go together well. That brute with the tusks on his shoulders keeps going, taking a second plate and then a third; the reptilian one hardly eats at all. Erik has a feeling that one’s taste doesn’t run to cooked food.

They’re brought back to the arena, which is louder than ever before, the screams of the crowd wild with anticipation. This time, though, they’re not allowed to choose their weapons – and to his dismay, he’s given a wooden staff.

Then again, maybe that’s not so bad; instead of using the remnants of his powers to work with his own weapon, he might be able to use them to influence the weapons of others.

Just as they’re about to go in, though, a voice calls out, “Hold!”

He looks around to see a lithe woman stalking in, strikingly blue and even more strikingly naked. This can only be Raven. Good God, no wonder Charles loves her. Erik might love her too, under other circumstances. Instead he hates her. He’s not sure whether he hates her more for wearing the stripes of a guard at Dead Man’s Paradise or for owning Charles’ heart.

She’s bringing in another prisoner: Logan. Damn it all to hell. The only ally he and Charles have here, and now only one of them can walk out alive. As Logan can’t be killed, no doubt it will be him.

Erik finds it harder than he expected to let go of his life – harder than it would have been before meeting Charles. But he finds his consolations quickly. Logan can also be a friend to Charles and a partner in their hopes of escape. Maybe Raven will be no help there, but there must be a flaw in the system, somewhere, somehow. He escaped from Buchenwald, didn’t he? So escape is possible from Dead Man’s Paradise, for Charles and the others like him, if not for Erik. It’s enough. It has to be.

“Substitution,” Raven says, and she nods toward Erik.

Azazel frowns. “The Jailer said he wanted this one in particular for the Corpse Carnival. He insisted.”

She only hesitates a moment. “Then for that one. Doesn’t matter. But the Wolverine goes in.”

With a shrug, Azazel pushes forward the mutant Raven pointed out, a woman with shining dark purple hair he heard called Psylocke. She’ll be the one freed.

“Thanks for the dinner,” she says briskly to Azazel as she stalks to Raven’s side. Psylocke’s got spirit. Erik’s not sorry he won’t have to kill her.

Logan walks in and takes up the weapon that had been given to Psylocke – a sword in a vaguely Japanese style. He holds it like he knows how. There’s no hint of concern there, not even chagrin. If anything, Erik would almost say that Logan looks … satisfied.

As the gangplank starts to open, letting in the glare of the floodlights and the roar of the crowd, Erik mutters, “I’ll take out as many of the others as possible. When it’s time, finish me quickly. Look after Charles if you can.”

“Look after him yourself, bub.” Logan clasps Erik’s arm, too hard – and something pricks into his skin. As Erik stares, Logan mouths one word: _Antidote._

Raven did it. She came through. Somewhere in this place, Charles is orchestrating their escape. The dart falls to the floor, but it’s done its work; Erik can already feel the surge of greater energy that comes after one of the antidote injections, though his collar remains static.

Azazel gestures with his prod, ushering them in. Thank God he saw nothing. Erik’s heart pounds as he walks into the arena. He says, just loudly enough to be heard over the cheering onlookers, “What are we to do?”

“Chuck says to make a scene out of it. Keep yourself alive. Leave the rest up to him and Mystique.” Logan cracks his knuckles against the slim blade of his sword. “I intend to enjoy myself.”

Make a scene? Erik can do that.

“And get my goddamn collar off, would you? I can throw the drugs outta my system once it’s gone, but it keeps pumping in stuff that makes me weak.”

Erik says, “Consider it done.”

The arena is packed for the Corpse Carnival. Despite the brilliant light, Erik can see them: men in suits and ties, women in cocktail dresses with fur stoles hanging off their shoulders. There are cigarettes in long black holders, martini glasses, even a whiff of French perfume in the air. It’s like the scene in a nightclub, except that these people want mutants to die for their amusement.

And there in the center – in a sort of parody of a royal box – sits Sebastian Shaw. When their eyes meet, Shaw lifts his martini in a toast.

The bell rings. The mutants all fling themselves at their chosen targets. Obviously Logan and Erik go for each other – but the one with tusks on his shoulders is after Erik too.

Erik swings his staff around, up and over, and it makes contact with Tusk’s head with a satisfying crack. As Tusk staggers back, Erik turns back to Logan and pretends to put him in a chokehold – but instead he feels the metal at his throat, sensing the alloy, pulling it apart. His own powers are still muted, but he’s more than strong enough for this. The hinge clicks. Logan shakes himself free of Erik, shakes almost like a wet dog, and the collar tumbles to the ground.

The crowd doesn’t seem to notice, but Erik observes one of the guards beginning to stare.

Then Tusk charges at Erik again, but Logan leaps on him – really leaps, beyond any human strength; he really can throw the drugs off that quickly. Logan head-butts his opponent, hard enough that they both stagger down dazed.

Using the moment, Erik brings his hands to his neck. The collar twitches – a pinprick, more poison, the guards must be activating the controls – but with the antidote coursing through his veins, it doesn’t matter. Erik tears the collar free and throws it across the arena.

And just like that, everything changes.

It’s as if he has been deafened but now hears music. As if his limbs had fallen asleep but instantly regained feeling. This entire arena is lined and ringed and reinforced with metal, and each element and alloy sings to him: Steel, aluminum, copper, iron. Erik can pick out every note in the chord, and play each of them as he will. This is not his full power, not quite yet, but it’s a huge leap forward.

Tusk goes to swing his steel hammer at Logan’s head, but Erik yanks it from his grasp. He doesn’t even make contact with it, just uses his powers to hurl it straight at Shaw.

Shaw somehow catches the thing – his own power absorbing the force of the throw – but the dismayed murmurs of the crowd tell Erik this is working. They know, now, that Shaw is a mutant as well. That they are not safe in their comfortable seats. That this Corpse Carnival will have a very different ending.

“End this!” Shaw shouts at the guards, and Azazel leaps into the ring with a swirl of red smoke. Fighting other fully powered mutants will make this complicated –

\--but then Azazel is flung to the other end of the arena, hard against the wall. Erik looks over to see Psylocke, her purple hair streaming behind her as she reaches upward. The guards’ prods all fly from their grasps toward her; she must be a telekinetic. Charles and Raven brought her in.

The crowd’s screams have changed now, from frenzy to panic. People are practically stampeding over themselves toward the exits. The mutants in the ring have stopped fighting, save for that gruesome reptilian one, who is either too stupid to understand or just likes killing, and Logan, who’s keeping the reptile busy. Even most of the guards have begun to flee. Azazel vanishes in a puff of red smoke before Erik gets the chance to kill him.

A pleasure for another time, Erik decides. He looks up into the crowd, desperate to find Charles – is he here? Maybe he has to be elsewhere, freeing the prisoners from their cells.

He doesn’t see Charles. Instead he sees Shaw, who leaps over the side, into the ring. His good suit is rumpled now, and his face is set in the expression Erik knows best: A too-tight smile that only barely hides the rage.

“You’ve just become more trouble than you’re worth,” Shaw says.

Erik doesn’t dignify this with a response. Instead he grabs his staff and swings it, hard, into Shaw’s gut. Shaw hardly flinches. The force of the blow ripples into him, and Erik knows he’s only made Shaw stronger.

Other weapons. Other methods.

But Shaw stoops to the ground to collect Logan’s sword (abandoned now, as Logan desperately wrestles with his reptilian opponent.) “Does this speak to you?” Shaw says. “Not as strongly as I speak to it.”

With a rush of anger, Erik stretches out his hand to prove Shaw wrong – but thought the sword sways in Shaw’s grip, Shaw is too strong. It can’t be ripped from him.

Erik reaches for the mesh lining the far walls and pulls it free, bolts showering down on the seats. It rushes down, and he wraps it neatly around Shaw – who instantly rips through it.

“Metal can cut you, can’t it, Erik?” Shaw’s grin is only getting wider. “You love it, but it doesn’t love you back. I have a mind to slice you through a thousand times, and you can taste each metal as it tears you apart.”

What to do? Only something slow will kill Shaw. Erik had long saved a coin for this purpose, but they took it from him when he was brought to Dead Man’s Paradise. Anything will work, really, but he needs opportunity and it’s not at hand even now.

Then he hears a cry from the stands: “Erik!”

He looks up to see Charles, alive and well, collar gone from his neck and bounding down the steps two at a time to get nearer the arena. Though Erik’s heart fills at the sight, he puts up his hand to warn Charles off.

Too late. Shaw glances upward. “Ah, your friend. The one you like so well. I see I’ll have to put someone else in the arena with him next time. Someone who won’t put his own hand in the harness.”

Which is when the reptilian mutant crashes into Shaw – literally, because his weighty, oversized corpse has been thrown across the arena. Erik wheels around to see Logan cracking his neck and muttering, “What the fuck was wrong with that guy?”

“Logan, find Raven. She’s getting the prisoners out but it’s mayhem down there,” Charles calls as he leaps over the side. He lands more awkwardly than Shaw did, but he’s back by Erik’s side – back in danger, as far as Erik can see.

As Logan runs out, and the reptilian mutant’s massive carcass twitches as Shaw prepares to throw it off, Erik pleads, “Charles, run.”

“You can’t stop him alone,” Charles says. He steps closer and puts his hand to his temple. “Erik – set me free.”

Instantly Erik understands. It’s terrible, but it must be done.

He lifts his hand and listens to the singing of the metal plate within Charles’ head. The layers are ingeniously composed – Erik can admire the construction even as he despises what it does to his friend. As carefully as he can, he reaches in and begins disintegrating it – almost molecule by molecule – and pulling it free.

Charles cries out in pain as the first cuts appear on the side of his head, and the sound turns Erik’s stomach, but he must keep going; all he can do now is make this as quick as possible. Sliver after sliver, shard after shard, none of them large and he tries to weave them through the wounds that already exist but it’s hard and they cut regardless. Blood runs down the side of Charles’ face, and he staggers against the wall of the arena, but he remains on his feet until the entire gory work is done.

The last sliver of metal from Charles’ head slices through the air toward Erik’s waiting hand. Erik forms it into a perfect disk. It’s not a coin, but it’s close enough – and it has its own meaning.

Shaw has righted himself, but he doesn’t seem to be paying attention to Charles; he’s too focused on Erik now, almost frenzied. “Shall we begin, Erik?” He picks up the sword. “They say gut wounds kill slowly – ”

From the corner of his eye, Erik sees Charles straighten, one hand to his bloody temple.

And then he learns just how powerful Charles Xavier truly is.

The entire arena goes dark. Illumination returns, but strangely – it seems to be coming from the seats, which are now filled. Erik realizes he knows the faces of those sitting there; they are no longer sleek English sophisticates, but faces from the memories he showed Charles. These are Shaw’s victims.

Shaw’s eyes go wide – he is not immune to this sight – but he doesn’t drop the sword.

He doesn’t use the sword.

He doesn’t move.

Erik realizes that Charles has paralyzed Shaw and is holding him fast. There’s nothing between him and his revenge any longer. Nothing between him and justice.

Charles stumbles forward, and Erik catches him against his side. “Are you all right?” he whispers to Charles. First things first.

“I will be.”

“Then let me finish this.”

“My friend – ” Charles looks up at him, fully half his face stained with gore. It only contrasts with the gentleness in his voice as he says, “This will not bring you peace.”

Once Erik would have found the idea of achieving peace a laughable one. Now that he has seen Dead Man’s Paradise and wanted a different answer for their kind – now that he has known Charles and discovered that he can be a very different sort of man – peace is more real than before.

It changes nothing.

“He must be stopped, and this is the only way,” Erik says quietly, and after a long moment, Charles nods.

So Erik pushes the metal disk forward, slowly forward, until it bores through Shaw’s skull.

Charles screams. Erik only barely manages to keep moving the coin as he grips Charles tightly. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, my God. Oh, God!” Charles is shaking now, unable to stand on his own. “It hurts – Erik, it _hurts_ – ”

He had never dreamed that Charles would feel his murder of Shaw. For one split second Erik weighs whether sparing Charles this agony is worth freeing Shaw long enough to find another option, and he decides yes.

But before he releases the disk, Charles whispers, “Finish it, finish it, Christ, just make it end!”

So Erik keeps going, hanging on to Charles and listening to the screams as he finishes the work of coring Sebastian Shaw’s brain. It seems somehow right that he should have to witness the agony of it, that even the murder of someone this monstrous should come at a price. It’s only wrong that Charles has to pay too.

Charles breathes out, half sigh and half sob, and Shaw collapses to the floor as if boneless. Erik turns first to his friend, brushing his blood-damp hair back from his face. “Is it over?”

“Shaw’s dying.”

“I mean, the pain.”

Wearily, Charles nods. He moves to sit on the floor, and Erik takes his place between his exhausted, bloodied friend and Shaw’s twitching form.

The end of Shaw: Erik sometimes wondered if this day would ever come. The illusion Charles had created has dissipated now, leaving Erik the only witness. He leans over Shaw’s blank face, which is already the mask of a corpse. To Charles, Erik says, “Can he still hear me?”

“Just.”

So Erik stoops even lower, to make sure even death-clouded eyes will see his face, and says to Shaw, “ _Jedem das Seine_.”

And he has the satisfaction of knowing Shaw heard him, as he listens to the death rattle in Shaw’s throat and knows that, finally, it is at an end.


	8. Charles

By midnight they’re back in the London townhouse. Charles finds it staggering to walk into one of the residences he’s called home for a great portion of his life; he and Raven have changed so much, and it has changed not at all. There’s still a forgotten packet of chocolate digestives on the kitchen table; the sink contains the last teacup he used before setting out to frame himself for murder.

The three of them drove here in the Lagonda Rapide that once belonged to Shaw. Raven appropriated the keys. Charles’ head still hurt too much for him to drive, so she took the wheel and shifted back into her blonde human form so as not to draw attention. Strange, how quickly that face he’s known so long has come to seem foreign to him, how much truer her blueness now feels. Before leaving, he had said farewell to Logan (who is “going back to Canada as fast as airplanes fly”) and exchanged information with the purple-haired mutant called Psylocke, who turns out to be a delightful girl, only too happy to work with them in the future. Then he had asked Erik to come along home – unsure of the answer he’d receive until the moment Erik climbed into the back seat.

Everything remains surreal until Charles puts the kettle on and makes some tea. That seems to restore normalcy.

Erik excuses himself quickly to the guest suite, and no wonder. Charles can only imagine that he must need time alone to process the enormity of Shaw’s death. That leaves him and Raven sipping tea in front of the fire, just as they have countless other times.

“Are we all right?” he asks, voice soft.

“You aren’t angry with me?”

“For falling under the spell of that place? No. Dead Man’s Paradise – it was designed to control our minds even more than our bodies.” Charles touches the bandage affixed to the side of his head; the ache is all but gone now. The cuts are so small he won’t even need stitches. “You’re free now. Every mutant is free.”

Some of those mutants were dangerous; they didn’t all frame themselves, and not all their victims were Nazis. Charles remembers too well Azazel’s casual sadism, and the way certain inmates were gleeful at the thought of rape and murder. The question of how the criminal justice system is to handle mutants and their powers is a valid one – but there must be another answer than Dead Man’s Paradise.

“You aren’t angry with me?” Charles asks in return, and when Raven looks at him, puzzled, he quietly explains, “For making a rather clumsy pass at you in the lift, which was more than a bit tactless.”

Her cheeks flush darker blue, but she giggles. “No. It was – nice.”

“Only nice?” He exaggerates his dismay, which makes her laugh harder. This is feeling more and more like old times, though perhaps even more comfortable between them than it was before.

“It’s better this way,” Raven says, nudging his leg with her foot from her place in the armchair. “Brother and sister, then.”

“Always.” Love and contentment fill the room, just like the glow of the fire.

Then he picks up on a wave of feeling – deep uncertainty, even vast – and realizes the source. “Erik’s troubled,” he says. “I should go to him.”

“Guess you should.” The way she looks up at him over the rim of her cup tells him she’s guessed the nature of his feelings for Erik. She’s not jealous, as he would have once feared, nor does she seem repelled by the fact that they’re both men. He senses that she’s not entirely at peace with that, either – but she’s trying to be. It’s a step in the right direction.

He walks up the stairs, which creak slightly underfoot. Good – Erik should be able to hear that he’s coming. After what they’ve endured the past few days, none of them need any more surprises.

The guest room is at the far end of the hall, closest to the street. Charles pauses before rapping on the door. Will Erik even want to see him? This time last night, he was abusing him – shaming them both –

 _Get over it_ , Erik has said, so Charles knocks. “Can I come in?”

There’s a pause before Erik says, “Please.”

Charles enters to find Erik sitting in the side chair, wearing the thick white toweling robe he would have found in the guest closet. Erik looks as out of place in this old-fashioned room with its green-glass lamps and Victorian furnishings as a grenade would look in a velvet-lined case. He only recently left the shower, and his hair is still damp. Though Charles is vividly aware that Erik is naked beneath that robe, he is determined not to let his mind go astray. Besides, Erik’s not thinking about sex. Even without probing, Charles can tell Erik is greatly confused. “What’s wrong, my friend?” He sits on the foot of the bed.

Erik says, “We just … walked away from it. We left it standing. I should have ripped Dead Man’s Paradise to rubble.”

“And destroy the proof? We can do better than that,” Charles protests. These plans have been forming in his mind since the moment Raven promised him the antidote. “Erik, think. We have evidence of crimes against humanity perpetrated here, now, in the heart of England. Raven put the records in the trunk – we can demonstrate that the games were attended by MPs, industry leaders, members of the nobility, the bloody Secretary of War. There’s even evidence that Shaw was at Buchenwald. Do you not realize the impact this will have?”

“You think the public won’t condone violence against mutants?” Erik’s eyes are hard.

Charles would once have scoffed at the idea, in a more innocent time, before Dead Man’s Wonderland. He knows better now. And yet human nature is a complicated thing. “Not when it is presented as something done to mutants by the Nazis. Not when politicians for one party can make political capital out of it, and they can – my God, this will probably bring Macmillan down. There are people already disgusted by the moral decay of the British establishment, and to reveal that the nation’s powerful were amusing themselves by watching rape and murder? This – this will be a bombshell. Mutant rights will be civil rights, from this day on.”

Erik considers that. “You’ll expose us.”

“We cannot remain invisible for much longer. There are too many of us, and the mutations are manifesting more dramatically all the time.”

“It’s a risk.” But Erik nods slowly. “Better now, when we have something we can use.”

“Exactly. Sebastian Shaw unwittingly gave us the key to public acceptance.”

“Public pity. It’s not the same thing.”

It occurs to Charles that Erik would understand this very well; two decades after the Holocaust, there are still fine clubs in the Western world that do not accept Jews. “No,” he says. “It’s not. But we are a new species. We’re going to have to fight a great deal of fear, for a very long time. This is as strong an opportunity as we’ll ever have to state our case and have people listen.”

Erik considers that. “I like the idea of Shaw undoing his own work. It would be good to use his tools against him.”

“So you agree we should try?”

“I agree that we must. And if anyone can make the world see it as it truly is – you can.”

Despite Erik’s doubts, he’s genuinely willing to make the attempt. There’s hope in him yet, unlikely and wonderful as it is, and Charles is heartened to feel it. They smile at one another, trusting yet uneasy. Charles tries hard not to look at the triangle of Erik’s bare chest exposed by the loose collar of his robe, tries not to think about what those muscles felt like pressed against him. The poison of that night lingers as strongly as the passion does.

Charles attempts to focus his thoughts. “You should be a big part of this. You were the one who saw Shaw at Buchenwald; your personal testimony will be invaluable.”

“There’s the small matter of my murdering Maximilian Kappel.”

“Who can be much more easily exposed as a Nazi, now that we have the proof about Shaw. And your treatment by the police, the way they sold you into this – it’s the kind of thing that must be brought to light.”

Slowly, Erik nods. At least they will be together in this great work. It’s not what Charles dreamed of for them, but it matters more, in the end.

And yet he will always feel the lack of what might have been.

He dares to wish for a little more, to push slightly harder. “You can stay here as long as you’d like, you know. Plenty of room. You could even live in the townhouse with us, if that’s something you’d want to do.” Charles’ eyes meet Erik’s dark ones for a silent moment that lasts too long. His voice uneven, he adds, “I’d like that.”

What he feels from Erik is hard to read: a sort of disquiet that isn’t easy to name. Then Erik shakes his head. “It’s kind of you to ask, my friend. But I can’t. Tonight, yes, but after that – you and Raven will want to be alone, surely.”

That doesn’t make any sense. “We’re fine, she and I. We’ve made up, and the rest – it just takes time.”

“Charles.” Erik leans his head back against the chair, tired and – how did Charles not feel it before? – in pain. Not physically, but emotionally: There’s a great weight on Erik, something apart from Shaw, something here in this room right now. “You’ve been reunited with the woman you love. Neither of you will want a houseguest hanging around for long.”

Charles can no longer look Erik directly in the eyes. His own dead hopes for Erik itch like a phantom limb. Though it takes them on more dangerous ground, he tells the truth: “Raven’s not – Erik, she’s like a sister to me. We’re not … romantically involved. We never will be.” Already his brief, despairing attempt to make love to her in Dead Man’s Paradise feels like pure folly. “So you can stay here, if you – unless it’s that you don’t want to be around me.”

Erik stares at him. “Your sister,” he repeats. Charles nods. Slowly Erik says, “Why wouldn’t I want to be around you?”

“Last night – what I did to you – ” The shame of it makes Charles want to cringe. But he holds to the truth; it’s all he’s got. “It ruined everything we might have been to each other. Poisoned us before we even had a chance.”

Another wave of sadness from Erik ripples through Charles, but it’s matched by sudden, fervent hope. Erik puts his hands on the arms of the chair and pushes himself to his feet, a measured, deliberate movement that somehow makes Charles’ heart begin pounding. How is just the way Erik moves sexy?

And how dare he feel that way about a man he hurt the way he hurt Erik?

Erik’s footsteps are soft against the old Persian carpet. He stands in front of Charles, close enough that Charles can feel the heat from the hot water of the shower Erik took, can smell the remnants of soap on his skin. Charles keeps staring downward, but the connection between them is still overwhelming.

“You wanted this?” Erik murmurs, laying one hand against Charles’ chest; the touch lances through him, a kind of emotional pain indistinguishable from joy.

He should lie. He can’t. “Yes.”

Erik’s voice cracks on the words as he says, “I thought – Raven – ”

“No. Only you.” Why does he have to see it now? Why is Charles aware that Erik is the one man he could ever have loved only now when they’re lost to each other? He should never have let Erik see it at all. “But – after the Night Games – Christ.”

A terrible silence falls. Erik’s sense of loss is sharp and sudden, and utterly devastating. And yet there is determination there too, so powerful it is tangible in the room; Charles can almost taste it. Another edge – anger, perhaps, bitter and ethereal as smoke –

“Shaw took everything else.” Erik’s low voice sends shudders along Charles’ spine. “He can’t take you too.”

Then Erik seizes Charles and kisses him, hard. His tongue forces Charles’ mouth open, and Charles braces himself against Erik’s shoulders, trying to push away even as he slips his tongue into Erik’s mouth in return. The pure driving force of Erik’s desire whips through him, a firestorm destroying everything that could get in its way, like hesitation or memory or doubt.

“He hasn’t taken you from me,” Erik pants as he kisses Charles’ cheek, his ear, his throat. His fingers pull at Charles’ shirt, clearly almost ready to rip it away. “Say he hasn’t. Say it!”

“No,” Charles says, though he’s not even sure what he’s denying.

Erik pushes Charles back on the bed, and Charles clings to his robe to pull Erik with him, and then they’re grappling together, tugging at each other’s clothes. Erik’s knee has pushed between Charles’ thighs; his hands shove Charles’ shoulders onto the mattress.

This shouldn’t be happening. This must happen. Charles is confused and unsure and yet he does not want to stop. He wants Erik – wants him desperately – and if the shadows are there, let them fall. If Erik can bear them, he will too. They can only find out if they can endure this by trying.

“Not you,” Erik breathes against Charles’ temple as he grinds against him, their rigid cocks touching through the constraints of Charles’ trousers. “I won’t lose you.”

With shaking hands, Charles manages to untie the knot of Erik’s robe. He’s exposed now, beautiful in his muscular, scarred glory – the body Charles remembers from the arena, but different now, in the soft light from the bedside lamp. Everything is different now. They’re still struggling together, but only to get Charles’ belt open, his socks off, his trousers down, damn and hell why does he wear so many clothes, Raven’s right about that really –

Then they’re naked together, and there’s one moment as Erik lowers himself over Charles – one moment where Charles remembers the arena and the screeching of the crowd and feels a frisson of fear – and he tenses.

Erik stops. He remains poised over Charles, his body taut and ready, but sadness wells up so quickly that it seems to shadow the room. “You don’t – we shouldn’t – ”

It’s Dead Man’s Paradise that Charles fears. Not Erik. Not the man he loves. They’re more than what was done to them.

So he does what he couldn’t have done in the arena. Charles kisses him, long and wet, then begins working his way along Erik’s skin, using his lips and his tongue. So many scars, each of them linked so strongly to memory that Charles can almost see the images as he presses his mouth to each place: the barbed wire, the knife, the fall, the tattoo. Erik lets Charles lead the way, panting as Charles rolls him over on his back, the better to lick the line that slashes across his abdomen, ribs to navel. Erik’s erect cock brushes against Charles’ breastbone.

Charles can hold back no longer, and he reaches out with his mind, seeking Erik. He needs more than Erik’s body. He needs all of him.

At first the mental touch is only what they shared in Dead Man’s Paradise – a flicker of awareness. For a moment, Charles is feeling what Erik physically feels (Charles’ hairy chest rough against his balls, Charles’ tongue hot and wet against his skin), and Erik receives in return (Erik’s calloused hands on his ribs, Erik’s flesh smooth next to his lips). Erik stifles a groan; good, he likes it.

Then Charles delves deeper, opening them both up.

And it’s all there. Everything Erik feels, everything Erik is. The way he can let his life go in an instant. The tension in his thigh as Charles’ palm grips him there. His dark humor. The sublime satisfaction of watching Shaw die. The fear that seized him when he saw Charles fighting for his life in the arena. The collision of their open mouths in a kiss as ragged as it is fervent. The touch of their fingers through a prison wall made of mesh. Charles in his arms, the two of them tangling in the coverlet, in each other.

Charles knows he’s just as exposed to Erik, can feel Erik’s mind unfolding within his. And surely his life must look petty compared to Erik’s tragedies and struggles, as Charles has spent his years chasing the science of mutation through textbooks, through papers, through X-ray diffraction pictures of DNA molecules.

But instead he sees himself through Erik’s eyes.

The faith it took to hold on to hope in Dead Man’s Paradise. His courage in reaching out to a fallen, panicked man about to commit suicide by attacking a guard. The way his teeth graze Erik’s throat, half-bite, half-kiss. How he stood there with blood pouring down his face to help Erik finish Shaw. How his smooth hand grips Erik’s cock. His humor in the face of death. Erik above him as they move together, belly against belly and thigh upon thigh, showing each other how it can be.

“My God,” Erik whispers against Charles’ cheek. He isn’t afraid. He isn’t turning away. He wants everything Charles is and more.

A flicker of what Erik wants flashes in Charles’s brain: Erik standing at the foot of the bed, Charles open to him, his body splayed out on his back. Charles clutches Erik to him in a fevered kiss, using his mouth and his hands and his mind deep within Erik’s to say _Yes, please, yes._

Then there’s a moment that’s almost frantic – Erik scrambling for some lotion or other, something that will do, and Charles trying to help him while still kissing him and tangling their bodies together – and then Erik’s hand pushes inside, fingers scissoring, and how can just that touch feel so incredibly good it makes Charles nearly arch off the bed?

Erik’s hands seize Charles at the hips, and once again there’s a moment of fear – a memory of how Charles though it would go in the Night Games, how he’d tried to brace himself against this possibility – but no, not against this. Against having it forced, against being watched. This, tonight, now, is what he wanted all along.

When Erik sinks into him, he goes slow, inch by inch, so that they feel every second. Charles gasps, pouring the delicious burn back into Erik’s mind, just as Erik reveals the heat and the crush that’s sending him over the edge.

Then they’re moving, both in unison, and what’s going through Charles’ mind now bears no resemblance to thought. He lets go, gives in to the surge of it, buffeted by a roar of sensation. There’s no longer any saying what pleasure is Erik’s or what is his own, no longer any difference. Impossible to say which man comes first, because it’s all tied together, one burst that soars up inside them and pours each of them out.

Erik collapses next to him on the bed, and for a long moment neither can speak. Charles tugs Erik’s hand into his, such a small gesture, and yet when Erik’s eyes meet his, he knows even this has moved him.

“If he had taken you from me,” Erik whispers, his voice shaking, “it would have been the last thing he could ever do to me. His greatest revenge, from the grave.”

“But he didn’t. No one ever could.” They kiss once more, and Charles repeats the first words he ever spoke to Erik: “You’re not alone.”

 

END


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